For the second time, the Miami-Dade County School Board rejected a proposal that would’ve made October “LGBTQ history month.”
A similar measure proposed in September 2022 had already failed in an 8–1 vote.
On Sept. 7, the Florida school board decided 5–3 to turn down the measure at 1 a.m. in the morning after allowing dozens of speakers from both sides to make their respective cases in an hours-long debate.
Over the last two years, the school boards across the Sunshine State have been increasingly filled with members aligned with conservatives in support of legislation that opponents call “Don’t Say Gay” laws.
The so-called “Don’t Say Gay,” movement, called for parents to exercise their rights and influence local curricula to protect their children from the LGBTQ agenda.
Florida at the Forefront of the Parental Rights Movement
The Miami-Dade school board last recognized “LGBTQ history month” in 2021 after social conservatives took over after being appointed by Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The state’s Don’t Say Gay Bill, was signed into law in March 2022 and barred public school teachers from discussing gender identity or sexual orientation with students.
Initially called the Parental Rights in Education Act, the legislation originally only banned those subjects for students in grades K-3, but the Florida Board of Education expanded its scope to include all grades in April.
The usage of pronouns that do not recognize the two biological genders was also banned in schools.
“This is about someone’s sexual preference and not a cultural issue,” Roberto Alonso, a conservative school board member who voted to reject the proposal, told Politico.
“It’s imposing ideologies and a sexual discussion that should not be happening inside of our schools.”
Under a separate Board of Education rule, teachers could lose their educator credentials for teaching those topics to students through grade 12.
LGBTQ Advocates Cry Bigotry for Failed Vote
Miami-Dade County school board member Lucia Baez-Geller, who supported recognizing “LGBTQ history month,” called the proposal a “ceremonial” and “nonbinding” way to support members of that community in the state.Advocates called the proposed observation, a reminder “to all cultures within our wider community of the important roles that LGBTQ people have taken in shaping the social, historical, legal, and political worlds we live in today.”
The proposal specifically stated that the bill would be “in accordance with state and federal law” to avoid a confrontation with Florida’s parental rights law.
“This didn’t happen in 2021 before the Parental Rights in Education bill,” she said at the hearing, adding, “It’s the cultural politics, it’s the political agendas, it’s the war on minorities, it’s the war on people who already are struggling.”
Opponents said they voted against the proposal to support parents who want to “avoid the sexualization” of their children.One of the two conservative board members appointed by Mr. DeSantis, Vice Chairman Danny Espino, told Politico the item violated the “intent” and “spirit” of the state’s parental rights laws.
“I really don’t know how a teacher is expected to recognize, observe, and celebrate this month without being perceived by students’ parents as instruction or without crossing the line and becoming instruction,” Mr. Espino said.
More than 520 bills opposing LGBTQ ideology have been introduced in state legislatures across the country in 2023 alone, according to the Human Rights Campaign, with Florida being one of the flagships of the movement.
