On July 1, 2022, the Parental Rights in Education Law came into effect in my home state of Florida. Among other actions, the law does three main things. First, it prohibits schools from grooming children in kindergarten through grade 3 in the radical LGBT agenda and requires discussion of sexual and gender topics in higher grades to be appropriate. As the law states:
“Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age- appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”
Second, the law requires that schools notify parents of any changes “related to the student’s mental, emotional or physical health or well-being,” “encourage a student to discuss issues relating to his or well-being with his or her parent or to facilitate discussion of the issue with the parent,” and “not prohibit parents from accessing any of their student’s education and health records created, maintained, or used by the school district.”
Third, the law prohibits school districts from adopting procedures or student support forms:
“that prohibit school district personnel from notifying a parent about his or her student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being, or a change in related services or monitoring, or that encourage or have the effect of encouraging a student to withhold from a parent such information. School district personnel may not discourage or prohibit parental notification of and involvement in critical decisions affecting a student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being.”
These last two parts of the law were adopted because woke schools across the country, including several in Florida, were “gender transitioning” children without notifying or receiving the consent of the children’s parents. Indeed, such schools had policies expressly forbidding notifying or receiving the consent of parents regarding the gender transitions and forbade parent access to their children’s school records.
As predicted, after this law protecting children and parents went into effect, the radical LGBT mob immediately filed suit in Florida to prevent the law’s implementation. And just now 16 Democratic attorneys general from The District of Columbia, New Jersey, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, and Oregon have filed an amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs in the case. Among other things, the brief declares:
“In addition to the harms it inflicts on LGBTQ youth in Florida and in Amici States, the Act harms Amici States by requiring them to increase expenditures of state funds to combat bias and protect their most vulnerable residents…State agencies will also need to expend additional resources to address the Act’s negative effects on members of their own LGBTQ communities…Amici States may need to ensure that the stigma caused by the Act does not spread to their own school environments…Amici States may need to increase funding for nonprofit organizations that provide social services to LGBTQ youth.”
Significantly, the brief does not mention the real reason the sixteen attorneys generals files the brief: because they believe that children as young as 5 should be groomed in the radical LGBT agenda and schools should be able to gender transition students while keeping parents in the dark. It is just that simple.
It is significant that all the attorneys general are Democrats and generally come from dying states. Perhaps actions like the filing of this court brief is one of the reasons why sane people concerned about the welfare of their children are fleeing such Democratic states and moving to Republican Florida.
Let’s hope the court in this case will support sanity by ignoring the attorneys general brief and upholding the Florida law. Our children’s lives are literally at stake.
Photo: Ron DeSantis, Florida Governor’s Office