Hey! Remember when you were in kindergarten?
Me neither.
How about 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade?
Remember where you sat, or next to whom?
I can remember my teachers and sort-of remember what I was instructed — reading, for sure. Probably a little math, a little geography, history, and civics.
I might have dipped Jane’s pigtails into the inkwell. I sure as hell do not remember asking her for her pronouns or any discussion of sexual identity, orientation, or gender.
That’s why I can’t understand the manufactured hysteria around a just-passed Florida bill that opponents — in a desperate act of demonization — have labeled “don’t say gay,” although the bill says nothing like that.
The bill’s title is the “Parental Rights in Education.” You can read it for yourself. Parents versus educators is the newest battle line in our culture wars.
“In practice,” noted the liberal Miami Herald, “it is unclear exactly how things will change in the classroom because sexual orientation and gender identity are not something being taught in grades K-3 at the moment. But what is certain is that the state Department of Education will be required to review and update educator practices and professional conduct principles, and other standards by June 2023.”
Key phrases — “at the moment” and “educator practices.”
“K-3 students are not taught about sex education. But conversations about families do come up in those grade levels, such as on an assignment about a family tree,” reports the Herald. “As explained by lawmakers, those lesson plans would still be allowed if the assignments prompt a discussion about a student’s LGBTQ family member.”
But Florida Democratic Sen. Annette Taddeo insists “This is going to endanger the safety of our LGBTQ students and adolescents.”
Endanger? How? Others say that gay children are somehow being “marginalized.”
They are not.
No one is saying sexual orientation and gender identity, etc., should never be taught in Florida schools. What the bill prohibits is making it part of the curriculum for 5, 6, and 7-year-olds. Kids barely able to tie their shoelaces should not be burdened with ideas about sexuality that even adults don’t understand.
If it comes up in a generic discussion — like Sally asking why Billy has two mothers — the teacher can take a shot at explaining. But maybe it’s best Sally be told to ask her Mom and Dad.
If sex education is not being taught in schools, as the Herald reported, you might ask why the law is necessary.
I called the office of the sponsor, Sen. Dennis Baxley to ask.
“We do have it happening in Florida schools,” Communications Director Matthew McClain told me.
Not teaching, in one example, but counseling a 13-year-old on gender transition, which resulted in her parents filing a federal law suit.
January and Jeffrey Littlejohn claimed the school district, without their knowledge or permission, called their daughter by they/them pronouns, solicited her bathroom preferences, and asked if she preferred to sleep with the boys on an overnight trip.
All that was enough to motivate Baxley to tell educators to, in the words of Pink Floyd, “leave them kids alone.”
There’s an appropriate age at which sex, gender, sexual practices, heteronormative, and queerness, can be studied.
If first graders are too young to be taught chemistry, they are too young to be taught sexuality.
Last paragraph – brilliant. I will add this to my list of best quotes. Thank you.
A. M.
You are quite welcome.
HAPPY THURSDAY !!!
Stu,
Always an interesting subject on your blogs.
I don’t know any gay couples out here in the bergs. Especially with young children. Mostly, what I know about sex education for the young, I get from our daughter who gets it from our grandchildren. Sorry to say, at ten or eleven years of age, little girls who think that they are lesbians walk around trying to convince their school mates that they are gay also. Fortunately, my granddaughter talks to my daughter and shares this problem. Welcome to the liberal woke world of 21st century America !
Tony
I will take a look in the near future about the effect you reference — kids “catching” it from one another.
Great column, Stu. You are always on top of the bottom feeders’ actions.
Heard today on a talk radio show that the Fairfax County (Virginia) school board has (I think I heard the number correctly) six members, NONE of whom have children. One of the board members is a gay-rights activist, one is a pro-Muslim activist, and the others I do not know about, but ALL (according to the caller and the radio host) are ‘progressives’ who are using the positions to advance a radical agenda in the Fairfax County School District. Fun with Dick and Jane… or Dick and Dick, or Jane and Jane.
HAPPY THURSDAY !!!
Vince,
We humans are really something. ( and we’re supposed to be at the top of the food chain )
If you meander back to the dark ages of our youth, you’ll find that people volunteered more then, mostly because they had more free time – PLUS, it was the civic thing to do.
As we progressed through our youth, we also volunteered, because that’s what we were taught. ( commonly known as ‘giving back’ )
As young parents we still volunteered with our children because we still had some – not much free time. That free time was dwindling away in the ’70s. During this time, we saw the quality of our elected/appointed officials start to diminish.
Fast forward to the 21st century. People have very little free time. What they have, they try to devote to their family. Our elected/appointed officials were found swimming in the bottom of the barrel. There in lies the problem. Quality people are not interested (?) in holding an office or a seat in local government. So we get the liberals and all of the bottom feeders holding those valuable seats.
Time to take a stand folks. One volunteer burns out quickly. Many volunteers last a long time because the work load is spread out. This is true at all levels of all government. One councilman or township supervisor can only do so much. Get two of the same mindset and the work gets done. Elect people to office that think for and with the people.
DRAIN THE SWAMP ! and VOTE THEM ALL OUT !
Tony
An excerpt from Miranda Devine’s NY POST – The White House is spreading vile lies about the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill.
The hysteria over the Florida bill is designed to preemptively smear DeSantis and any conservative who tries to stop the systemic sexual grooming of the nation’s tiny tots. And it uses a particularly vile form of moral blackmail to suppress dissent, by pretending that children might commit suicide unless they are subjected to explicit sex education. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten, a former teacher, said the Florida bill would “kill kids.”
I am damn sick and tired of these sons-of-bitches here in the USA who are siding with puken. All of these assholes appear to be on the cuckservitive side of the political spectrum.
I do not care who you are. Be you man, woman or former President. If you are siding with puken you are a traitor and need to suffer the consequences that may come about from your verbal, and/or physical actions.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
hey please give adam your brother some cash
One of the biggest weaknesses of our populace today is a shoot from the hip mentality without doing minimal research to support their position or find out they were wrong. Years ago, there was an outcry about gay couples adopting children because the kids would automatically become gay. Every study has shown that gay or straight parents’ kids are exactly the same when they provide a safe, educational, and loving home. On the other side, too much discussion ignoring the age gap of understanding invites parents to quickly jump about transformation or forcing assimilation of exploring all interests in becoming gay simply by reading a book or having it part of a structured lesson on the birds and bees. Last, some words that once were demeaning and insulting, though not respectful, are used to call somewhat a faggot that in the seventies and eighties were hurtful and started fights. Today a lot of men use it as a nasty sign of friendship when in a comical argument. You “faggot” in my area is never used to call out a gay but to use as a put-down on friends.
That’s so gay.
Another expression that is not really homophobic.
A late thought on that gay column: We should not teach sexuality at any level lower than religion is taught.