Media Falsely Paints Florida Parental Rights in Education Law Settlement As a Loss for Ron DeSantis
“The tweet doesn’t tell you this, but the settlement literally restates what the law clearly says…”
In 2022 as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was ramping up his war on woke in the public school system and higher education, Democrats and the mainstream media kicked up quite a duststorm over the Parental Rights in Education bill.
The bill, which was signed into law by DeSantis in the spring of 2022, was designed in part to prevent age-inappropriate lesson plans on sexual orientation and gender ideology in K-3 classrooms and enshrined parental rights when it comes to discussions of such sensitive subject matters with children.
At the time, the Usual Suspects on the left and the MSM wrongly dubbed the bill the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, falsely claiming that it prohibited the mere mention of the word “gay” in classroom settings. There were billboards, campaigns, and all the rest from the activist left/media falsely painting Florida to be the “Don’t Say Gay” state.
Disney even infamously got involved.
Here we are two years later, and a settlement has been reached between the DeSantis administration and LGBTQ groups and activists who filed a lawsuit over the law:
The settlement says that students and teachers are allowed to talk about sexual identity and gender orientation in public schools, as long as it is not part of formal classroom instruction.
The plaintiffs claimed victory, saying it would put an end to discrimination that resulted from ambiguities in the law, officially called the Parental Rights in Education Act.
The administration of Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, also portrayed the settlement as a major win, saying it confirmed that critics had willfully misinterpreted the law as applying more broadly than it actually did.
In their statement declaring victory, the DeSantis administration referenced how left-wing activists and the corporate media worked together to undercut the law in the court of public opinion – and failed:
Frequently carrying water for the activists, the media wrote countless stories lying about the intent, design, and application of the law. The activists carried these same lies into the courtroom—thankfully, to no avail.
Their judicial activism has failed. Today’s mutually agreed settlement ensures that the law will remain in effect and it is expected that the case will be dismissed by the Court imminently.
Though the settlement didn’t change one word of the law whatsoever, some media outlets and opinion writers at some notoriously anti-DeSantis news outlets falsely framed it as vindication for how they initially (and wrongly) portrayed the legislation:
BREAKING: Sexual orientation, gender ID can be talked about in Florida classrooms under lawsuit settlement https://t.co/Gng2T2AxJO
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 11, 2024
Say gay, Florida. DeSantis’ homophobic law doesn’t survive court challenge intact | Opinion https://t.co/GmmHwiDWaI
— Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) March 12, 2024
A settlement clarifying a bill, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics, has been reached in Florida. The change will allow sexual orientation and gender identity to be discussed in classrooms. pic.twitter.com/3zIocLszty
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) March 12, 2024
A lawsuit settlement over Florida’s “don’t say gay” statute announced Monday restores the ability for teachers and students to discuss LGBTQ issues, largely canceling many of the impacts of the signature legislation from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). https://t.co/0FgkUx3w7Z
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 12, 2024
Except… no, as explained by veteran Florida reporter Marc Caputo:
The tweet doesn’t tell you this, but the settlement literally restates what the law clearly says (lede has it right)
I said this @ the time that calling it the “Don’t Say Gay” law was inaccurate. But we kept saying it anyway. Now the settlement proves the name was misleading https://t.co/5jy2niPfc3 pic.twitter.com/VaWoXEYPoI
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) March 11, 2024
When I spoke out in March 2022 about this, I accurately noted the law “doesn’t say don’t say gay” & warned that saying this enabled DeSantis to prove the media doesn’t live up to its own standards
I got chastised by the bosses for saying it
I was righthttps://t.co/SWUvp25T5b
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) March 11, 2024
Some folks are calling this a loss for DeSantis
It’s not
It marks a further loss of credibility for lots of folks, including many in the MSM https://t.co/c8A4o3uZi8
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) March 11, 2024
Members of the DeSantis team also had thoughts on the media’s continued attempts at mislabeling the law – and the settlement:
Homophobic – adjective – having an opinion that the Miami Herald does not like.
— Jeremy Redfern (@JeremyRedfernFL) March 12, 2024
And never forget how some in the media at the time actually admitted they called it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill because it was better “branding”:
A Florida journalist literally admitted they kept calling it "don't say gay" because it was just good branding. That would have been a good time to call that bullshit out but none of you did. https://t.co/IDpnPW5Tb5 pic.twitter.com/gGzJwkoUgN
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) March 12, 2024
So to sum up, after two years of legal wrangling, the law DeSantis and parental rights advocates championed remains in effect, with the wording unchanged, and with “clarifications” soon to be sent out to public school educators.
Next?
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
The Community Notes that some of the wacked-out leftists wound up getting were epic. They seem to have taken the Mark Twain quote to heart paraphrased): “If you’re being rid out of town on a rail, try to make it look like you’re leading a parade.”
Why in the world would the DeSantis administration agree to let these perverts talk about THEIR sex in front of kids at ANY TIME!
They are right, it’s a stupid win for the perverts
No, you are the sexual pervert for saying that DeSantis is the problem here..
You clearly never actually read the law. The law prohibits putting it in the curriculum or having formal education present it. It did not prohibit discussions which were not formalized as part of the curriculum.
This is really a “parent” problem.
If you send your child to a government school, you lose your ability to determine what kind of influences your child will be exposed to.
Stop depending on Governor DeSantis’ limited ability to protect your child!
No one is depending in DeSantis to “protect my child”. But many ARE counting on him to put some limits on the not very subtle indoctrination of children into dangerous and very immoral practices, which is precisely what WAS happening.
Mentioning or discussing these things in casual way but not as part of the mandated state approved curriculum on a level with maths and physics and classical literature is radically OTHER when compared to including sexual perversions as part of a mandated curriculum along with the assurance that this is right and good and necessary. and must be studied and learned the way WE present it, never mind what your parents might tell you.
YUUUUUGE difference. And definitely NOT the call of school admin, curriculum developers, unions, teachers. That falls to the parents.
“Formal instruxction” where I am is defined as the time in which students are in my class. For a K-3, that is pretty much all day except lunch.
That’s not what the state has been saying since the beginning, or what’s in the settlement.
So not everything that happens in the classroom is “classroom instruction”.
Also, do K-3 kids at your school not get playtime?! They have lessons straight through from arrival to lunch and from lunch to dismissal?! How do they manage to sit still that long?
“Media Falsely Paints…..”
That’s not news. That is their main business.
Has anybody looked in to the actual people who spent two years litigating this question?
“How much can an adult discuss of their sex life with somebody else’s 6-year-old?”
If you haven’t been paying close attention before, clearly the teaching profession has become a magnet for the ahem “minor attracted.”
Is it not a bit reckless entrusting your little ones to the care of today’s K-12 teachers?
For hours and hours and hours every day
Not to mention the “peer group”.
Govt. schools are the problem. This relentless sexual stalking, sexual harassment, sexual perving of others in any other workplace would have the offender reprimanded, fined, fired, or arrested, so why are govt. schools exempt? Why?
Govt. schools are the problem.
Once again, the problem is the left’s deliberate preemption of language. “Our Hearts Were Young and Gay” wasn’t a book and movie about homosexuals, but you can’t use the word anymore in its proper context.
“Gay” has had a sexual meaning since at least the 1880s, and has meant specifically “homosexual” since the early 1930s. (I have a book published in 1930 in which it simply means “promiscuous” in a heterosexual context; by the mid-1930s that usage had fallen out of the language.)
From the government’s initial brief, right when the litigation started:
The plaintiffs claim this is a victory, because they claim the statute is ambiguous, and the government was not providing the schools with any guidance on how to interpret it. What they say they’ve now achieved is that the government will publish its interpretation to all the school districts, and have it disseminated to all school principals. Of course they could have asked for that two years ago and the state would have happily complied.
Please don’t take this the wrong way but I see legal insurrection articles varying in quality these days. This article mentions near zero of what the settlement actually entails.
Why not at least include that so we can be more objective instead of playing whataboutism with the left? I don’t need a cheerleader. I need facts and I don’t like to get them from biased sources like Fox, MSNBC, ABC, etc.
Just a long time reader and contributor’s opinion.
The settlement entails the government agreeing to disseminate to all school districts its interpretation of the law, which it has maintained since the beginning, for them to pass it on to all school principals. That’s all. There is literally nothing else.
The plaintiffs could have asked for that at the beginning and the government would have been happy to do it. Instead they went two rounds in court, each time having their suit dismissed for failure to state a case.
I read your post above mine and was grateful for the summary, but I think that should be the author’s job not yours.
As a public service for American teachers and parents who are at a loss as to how to fill up K-3 schooldays:
Some things that a K-3 child might spend time learning about—in lieu of adults’ sex lives:
– a foreign language
– a musical instrument
– gymnastics
– swimming/diving
– dance
– penmanship
– proper shoelace management & maintenance
This is only a partial list.
You’re welcome.
A quick thought on process. A law can’t be changed by a settlement of a lawsuit. A law is made (and modified) by the legislature and signature of the governor. A law can be ruled unconstitutional by a court, but that is through the action of the udge at the end of the case, not the agreement of the parties during the case.
So any agreement before the judge has made a ruling has to be that the law remains 100% intact.