LGBT teachers in Florida are lamenting the passage of the Parental Rights in Education Act—disingenuously described by its opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” law—banning sexuality education for early elementary schoolers.
This from westernjournal.com.
In case you’ve been living under a rock over the last few weeks (in which case I envy you), the left is now fully committed to the policy platform that public school teachers must be allowed to teach your first-graders about sex.
And, of course, the left is hysterically characterizing legislation designed to stop this as an attack on the personhood of LGBT people everywhere.
The Parental Rights in Education Act, which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed last week, bans instruction on “sexual orientation or gender identity” for children in kindergarten through third grade or to older students “in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”
Robert Thollander, a sixth-grade teacher in Orlando, said he plans to make a career change to real estate after a group of parents took issue with his discussing his upcoming gay nuptials. He told NBC News that he thought the parents had been empowered by the bill.
Interestingly, he seems to fail to accept the no doubt uncomfortable yet nevertheless valid point that millions of Americans do, in fact, have every right to believe that homosexuality is immoral, no matter who it upsets.
Those parents are taxpayers and they want the public school system to teach young children how to read and write, rather than have discussions about gender and sexuality.
Nicolette Solomon, 28, told NBC News she is quitting her position as a fourth-grade teacher at a Miami-Dade elementary school over the legislation, which she says would “erase” her “as an LGBTQ teacher.”
“Nobody would be able to know, which then puts me in the closet, and I’m there seven hours a day, if not more, five days a week. I wouldn’t be able to be who I am,” she lamented.
“And I don’t think I can bear to see the students struggle and want to ask me about these things and then have to deny them that knowledge,” Solomon said. “That’s not who I am as a teacher.”
Opponents of the law, like Solomon, cite concerns that limiting how teachers can address LGBT issues will prevent confused LGBT students from confiding in them, potentially putting these kids at an even higher risk of suicide and bullying.
Yet the general population of American youth is struggling with crippling mental health issues, and it is a very dangerous assumption to make that a public servant qualified to teach children phonics or long division will serve as the best confidant and counselor for a child—the assumption being, of course, that all parents who might have something different to say about the child’s sexual desires or gender confusion than his or her LGBT teacher are abusive, and children must be protected from them.
So, if this law is a dealbreaker for certain teachers—if they won’t be able to infuse their sexual morals into the way they teach your children the three R’s, they’re quitting—well, then, the law is doing its job, isn’t it?
The movement of ‘Coming Out of the Closet’ has been a dichotomy of straight versus gay in America for several decades. And the progression to where we are now has been too rapid and too troublesome for many on the straight side of the conflict.
Initially, “sexually queer” people wanted to be called gay and to be acknowledged they exist. Next they wanted “equal rights.” Then the gay rights platform demanded equal participation. Following that achievement, gayness began to be pushed into the faces of the larger straight public. And now straight people have been forced to the back of the bus, to use an old metaphor. Gayness is demanding to be the dominant culture.
Think about this: Gays are still a minority but it seems their tactics are to indoctrinate our young into their lifestyle, whereby within a couple generations, gay may very well have become the majority lifestyle in America.
Just four decades ago who would have thought the straight community would require protection from the ever-encroaching gay community by way of the enactment of new laws?
Further, just four decades ago who would have imagined straight people would be accused of impropriety and be forced to seek out states and communities of their own kind?
God speed to Governor DeSantis. May more governors and many mayors take a stand and safeguard the rights of the still-larger straight community.
And God speed to Conservatism.
