Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill Plays Into DeSantis’s Hands
9th March 2022
On Tuesday, the Florida Senate passed the Parental Rights in Education bill, and Democrats lost their minds. The Florida left is in a bind these days. Governor Ron DeSantis is shaping the state in his image and Florida is all but guaranteed to go red for the foreseeable future. Yet their recent behavior is desperate even for them.
Democrats are having trouble finding suitable candidates to run for statewide elections in 2022 — Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, for instance, isn’t seeking to reclaim her old seat — so it’s not a surprise that they’ve gone all in with the emotional scare tactics and sleight-of-hand rhetorical tricks that increasingly epitomize their party. The approach, however, is misfiring, only serving to prepare DeSantis for his inevitable 2024 presidential bid.
The Parental Rights in Education bill, which Democrats dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, restricts “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” in pre-K to third grade, and is expected to be signed by DeSantis into law in short order. The words “don’t say gay” don’t appear anywhere in the bill, of course, but Democrats know their opposition must elicit maximum emotionality in order to fire up their base while obscuring any inconvenient facts.