Classic "disingenuous use of partisanship to talk past each other", but it's funny how the ostensibly "limited government" people are seemingly unworried about the potential for overreach in this case.
Show me where the Florida law says anything about "families and relationships?" Young kids don't view parental relationships as inherently sexual, and therefore talking about different kinds of families doesn't require talking about sexuality.
That is, in fact, pretty much the point of the law--to prevent teachers from using discussions of families as a vehicle to talk about sexuality and sexual attraction to third graders.
This is the sort of deliberate, disingenuous misapprehension that I'm talking about. You understand that the phrase "sexual orientation" is widely interpreted as "what gender of person a person has relationships with", right? As in, it's not just about "sex" in the prurient, not-safe-for-children sense.
[0] https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/er/... (warning, PDF)
> 3. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3…
I read this to prohibit discussion of sexual attraction with kids third grade and under. I don’t read this to prohibit incidental mention of someone’s same-sex spouse.
Sexuality \Sex`ual"ity\, n.
The quality or state of being distinguished by sex.
--Lindley.
[1913 Webster]
If the purpose of schools is to undo the instillment of parents' values (or lack of them), we should at least be honest about it. That's the assumption behind most debates of this type.
If the purpose of schools is to teach specialized skills that most parents don't have, then we should cut the crap so that kids can learn them.
If the purpose of schools is to babysit kids so that their parents can be used as human batteries for Nestle and Kroger, then God help us.
Which means that having a law that says teaching human sexuality can't happen is impossible to do without turning the teachers into uncaring robot like beings.
They could have banned the teaching of sexually explicate material but they chose not to.
How archetypally liberal to define the difference between humans and “uncaring robot like beings” in terms of being able to talk about “human sexuality.” It’s really an obsession isn’t it.
http://dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=sexuali...
We are, after all, talking about a law and a legal system where definitions are somewhat important.
> Definition of sexuality : the quality or state of being sexual:
> a : the condition of having sex
> b : sexual activity
> c : expression of sexual receptivity or interest especially when excessive
I don’t think I’m being a prude in saying that third graders shouldn’t be learning about any of this.
But that's exactly the problem. Parents want to insulate their young children from discussions of "human sexuality." We have strong social conventions to be able to talk about things kids are exposed to--weddings, etc.--without expressly talking about sexuality. Many parents, however, no longer trust teachers to adhere to these social conventions.
That isn't how the law is written. They could have, perhaps, actually written it that way but they didn't. I will leave it to the reader to infer their true intentions.
Why do children have to be taught about $anything in school? They have home and families, even extended ones, for that.
Why would this constitute overreach?
The bill that was passed is deliberately vague. Beyond that, it empowers private citizens to sue teachers in their personal capacities for any alleged transgression.
This is crazy. The status quo was that this question would be left up to school districts, with boards that are elected at the local level. If a teacher was not complying with school district policy, then the recourse was to fire the teacher.
The bill you're arguing in favor of hijacks control from local voters, overrides the expressed preferences of parents and local voters, and relies on civil lawsuits to enforce a state policy.
It absolutely is not the case educational material decisions are a purely local choice as the “status quo”.
Schools need to adhere to the Common Core subject areas, but what materials they use in teaching that was up to the district.
Recently, Florida's state-level Department of Education has been restricting the textbooks that school districts can use, but this is more of a reject list, than an accept list.
I also believe in constitutional republics where we have overriding laws which protect minorities — but that doesn’t apply in this case, as there isn’t an inherent right to discuss sex with other people’s young children.
So it would be acceptable for those same religious people to stop females from getting the same sort of education males receive? The damage done to others by such actions has to be taken into account.
I addressed that already.
> The damage done to others by such actions has to be taken into account.
This is something said but not done: look at how the male minority is treated in education, where the female majority speaks about equality while engaging in institutional sexism against the minority.
If Democrats want me to believe they are genuine in those principles, they should apply them consistently.
>I addressed that already.
Females are slightly more than 50% of the population.
There’s many mechanisms by which a school can be influenced and covering them all at a high level is difficult. In trying to set specific process controls, you merely encourage gamesmanship: “this wasn’t done by the board — we voted to outsource our decision to a NGO!”
A more effective mechanism is to define the standard (ie, don’t talk to kids below 9 about sex in schools) — but give enforcement powers when that standard is breached to the people actually impacted by that breach. This law gives people a tool to hold government accountable when it breaches the norms expected by the community, eg when they groom children.
> to keep stoking the fires of the culture wars. When they get their people denouncing the opposition as “groomers”, they are achieving their objective.