Our wealthy Dull Republican Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, PAUL RENNER, supposedly reopresents part of St. Johns County. He's never given a fig about St. Johns County. He's a corporate lawyer with the NELSON MULLINS law firm, defending the rich and powerful and abusing his government gig to divide us and take our rights away, as with tort reform and anti-Gay legislation. From The Washington Blade:
Fla. lawmakers pass bill to expand ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law
Hundreds of students protested in Tallahassee
More than 150 students protest Florida's "Don't Say Gay" expansion bill in Tallahassee, Fla., on March 31, 2023. (Photo courtesy of Equality Florida)
On International Transgender Day of Visibility, hundreds of students from across Florida descended on the Capitol to protest the legislature’s fast-tracking of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ agenda of book banning and classroom censorship and assaults on academic and medical freedom.
Buses arrived from Central and South Florida in a collaboration between high school, college and university students called the Student Unity Coalition.
Today, the FL House will vote on a bill to expand Don’t Say LGBTQ, ban parents from telling schools how their child should be addressed, & allow anyone anywhere to challenge a book in FL’s schools.
— Equality Florida (@equalityfl) March 31, 2023
Outside, hundreds of students from across the state are arriving to protest. pic.twitter.com/G8wSwgjhDd
Organizers marched the coalition from Florida State University campus into the halls of the Capitol building just as the House of Representatives voted 77-35 in favor of House Bill 1069, which would expand the “Don’t Say Gay” law’s censorship provisions through 8th grade, ban parents from requiring the school system use their child’s correct pronouns, and escalating book bans, allowing one person from anywhere in the nation to challenge a book in a Florida school, prompting its immediate removal pending a lengthy review.
This legislative session (and DeSantis regime) in a nutshell: students chanting so loudly in the halls to demand equitable, safe schools that they briefly interrupt a floor rant from Rep. @RalphMassullo about kids identifying as cats and being provided litter boxes in class (?). https://t.co/3ym0DgkD62
— Brandon Wolf (@bjoewolf) March 31, 2023
“The students who mobilized in the hundreds today sent a clear message about the Florida they want to grow up in,” said Equality Florida Senior Political Director Joe Saunders. “They want a Florida that values freedom — real freedom. Free states don’t ban books. Free states don’t censor LGBTQ people from society or strip parents of their right to ensure their child is respected in school. Students and families across Florida are fed up with this governor’s agenda that has put a target on the backs of LGBTQ people. Shame on DeSantis’ legislative cronies for peddling more anti-LGBTQ lies on the House floor today and ramming through an expansion of the censorship policies that have emptied bookshelves across the state and wreaked havoc on our schools. Shame on them for ignoring the voices outside demanding a state that respects all families and protects all students.”
House passage of HB 1069 comes as last year’s “Don’t Say Gay” law wreaks havoc on Florida’s schools and drives educators and families from the state. DeSantis’ Florida has become synonymous with the sweeping book bans that are targeting books with LBGTQ characters or Black history themes, including “The Life of Rosa Parks” and “And Tango Makes Three.” Students’ graduation speeches have been censored.
Rainbow Safe Space stickers have been peeled from classroom windows. Districts have canceled long standing after school events and refused to recognize LGBTQ History Month.
The rampant right wing censorship has exacerbated Florida’s exodus of educators, with vacant teacher positions ballooning to more than 8,000, and, according to a recent survey from the Williams Institute, has led a majority of LGBTQ parents in the state to consider leaving Florida altogether.
Students react to hearing the news of the bill’s passage. pic.twitter.com/30aWe9SsUh
— Equality Florida (@equalityfl) March 31, 2023
On Thursday, parents and educators held a joint press conference outside the House chamber to decry this legislation and other proposals that would strip them, their students, and their families of the rights to academic and medical freedom.
That same day, Republicans lawmakers rejected numerous reasonable amendments to House Bill 1069, including a Parental Rights amendment by state Rep. Rita Harris that would have allowed parents to write a letter instructing schools on what pronouns their child should be addressed with, a clarifying amendment from state Rep. Ashley Gantt that would have finally defined the term “classroom instruction,” which bill sponsor state Rep. Stan McClain acknowledged has been left undefined and vague, and a marriage equality amendment by state Rep. Michele Rayner-Goolsby that would have struck outdated and bigoted sex education language that mandates instruction on the benefits of “monogamous, heterosexual marriage.”
The more than 150 high school and college students who rallied in Tallahassee filled the Capitol rotunda just before 1 p.m. ET, with their chants of “this is what democracy looks like” temporarily interrupting a disinformation-filled rant by GOP Representative, and sponsor of the bill to criminalize medical care for transgender youth, Ralph Massullo.
The “Don’t Say Gay” expansion bill’s Senate version, Senate Bill 1320, will move next to its final committee, Fiscal Policy.
1 comment:
GOP racism, homophobia, and misogyny knows no bounds. Their culture war is a hate campaign.
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