Don't Say What?

The supposed "don't say gay" law and associated confusions

Don’t Say What?

In the spring of 2022, there was much hubbub about the so- called “Don’t Say Gay” law passed in Florida. Politicos, pundits, and even actresses weighed in, usually with sentiments negative toward the new law. Or at least the sentiments the media chose to convey to us were negative.

Having in recent years developed a profound distrust of the mainstream media (as have many others) my first reaction was to wonder what this law really said. I doubted that any state legislation had literally written ‘don’t say gay.’ So what was being said?

Searching online, I found numerous sources eager to paraphrase, summarize, put their own spin on, and generally tell us what they wanted us to think and feel about this new law. What I wanted, though, was to know what the law actually said. I needed to see a transcript of the text of the law. This was surprisingly difficult to track down, but I eventually managed to do it.

The gist of the seven-page law seems to be concerned with a potential conflict between parents and school administrations over who decides how students should be taught. Or perhaps more accurately, how they should be indoctrinated. This

presumably could apply to any conflict over educational content, but the focus in this case seemed to be on sexual education.

The new law generally favored the parents in this struggle. Exceptions were made to parental control if it could be shown that parents were dangerous or abusive, wild-eyed fanatics who might injure their own children, perhaps, but over-all, parental rights were asserted. In the event of a disagreement between parents and school, special magistrates could be appointed, paid for by the school system, to arbitrate.

What about not saying gay? In a brief section on the fourth page of the law, we see that teaching “sexual orientation or gender identity” is expressly forbidden for students in kindergarten through third grade. The “sexual orientation” part seems to be where critics get the “don’t say gay’’ idea, and this interpretation seems somewhat valid. However, “sexual orientation” has to include any orientation, not just homosexual. Therefore, the law includes a “don’t say straight” (either) admonition —as some actress requested. (And Mark Hamill reputedly wrote “gay” 200 times on Twitter or some such. An act of heroic courage, presumably, though I don’t think he teaches school in Florida.)

In the same way, the prohibition against teaching “gender identity” for children kindergarten through third grade would include not teaching straight gender identity. Again, straight gender identity is one of the possible options, and teaching it is therefore also prohibited.

So, in effect, the law doesn’t want sex education of any type to be taught in the first four years of school. What about after that?

The following section requires that any other sex ed, presumably limited to fourth grade and up, be “age appropriate.” (The wording is a little vague, but since specific rules for K through 3 have already been stated, the “age appropriate” condition must logically apply to all others — students past third grade.)

How much sense does this law make? Aside from moral and political issues, the first requirement of any law — the starting point — is that it avoids ambiguity. If I’m a teacher in Florida, and I want to be sure I’m staying on the right side of legality, is this law sufficient clear?

The lines pertaining to kindergarten through third grade are clear enough: no sex ed. How about the “age appropriate” part? This is a little more difficult to interpret. Someone has to decide what

is age appropriate. How is it defined? This is a bit like saying, “just use good judgment.” Who judges good judgment? The suspicion occurs to me that Floridian teachers who have good judgment wouldn’t need such a law in the first place, and those teachers lacking good judgment probably won’t be helped by the law: It’s too dependent on subjectivity.

How about the broader moral and political issues? Is this an acceptable piece of legislation? The state of Florida has the legal right to pass, within limits, whatever laws it wishes. Do we need this law? We wouldn’t have a few years (or decades) back, since at one time parents and school administrations were mostly on the same page about sex ed. There were occasional, individual conflicts, but in general we would all have agreed that the job of schools is to teach readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmetic, and the job of parents (and maybe churches) to instill moral values. The whole altercation suggests that school administrations and many parents are politically and culturally diverging.

So: what indoctrination, enculturation — information — are school teachers and administrators receiving that parents aren’t?

September 3, Ain O’Malley