If you’re looking for a chuckle some time, Google “Florida Man.” The laughable parade of ridiculous clowns is endless:
The Florida man who told police he couldn’t be arrested for drinking and driving because he only gulped his bourbon at stop signs.
The Florida man who stole a Walmart mobility scooter so he could drive his date to a sports bar.
The Florida man who fast-tracked an effective vaccine against Covid, but then told America to inject bleach into their veins instead.
Of course, Florida man stories usually end predictably — with injury, arrest, impeachment or the like. But oh, what fun they bring along the way!
And now there’s a new Florida man doing his best to thrill you with his koo-koo kapers, and he hopes to graduate from the Florida governor’s mansion to do it in the White House.
Ron DeSantis’s latest caper is his “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would restrict the free speech of teachers to discuss gender identity and sexual orientation in schools — even if students, teachers and parents want that discussion to take place.
Oh, he doesn’t call his bill “Don’t Say Gay,” of course. He calls it “Parental Rights in Education.” And that’s such a “Florida Man” thing to do, especially when the ultimate parent-and-education group — the Florida PTA — has come out firmly against it. So did the Florida Association of School Nurses, Florida School Counselor Association, Florida Association of School Psychologists, and other educational associations.
The bill targets instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade — the age when many children feel the first stirrings of confusion about who they are, compared to who others think they are. Beyond that, the bill mandates that later-grade discussions must be “age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate.”
But because there is no way to quantify terms like “age-or-developmentally appropriate,” the bill opens the door for any parent to sue their child’s school and let the courts decide what the term means. It’s a term that tears the mask off the bill and reveals it for what it is—a homophobic attack on being “different.”
Never mind that more than 60 percent of polled Florida parents oppose the bill. All that matters is that a small minority of homophobes can control free speech simply by filing lawsuits against teachers and schools.
I have witnessed firsthand what a minuscule number of zealots can do to a school. Long ago, my wife was a middle-school teacher, and one of her students was a boy whose father was a nationally known atheist zealot. He sued every school his children attended if they presented any trappings of religion — including Christmas decorations. The result was obvious. Cowed by fear of a lawsuit, those schools remained “Christmas-free,” even though most parents and students would have welcomed such festive decorations.
The inevitable result of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill is obvious too. Excellent Florida teachers are already looking elsewhere to teach, or leaving education altogether. Why risk getting sued?
But Florida Man DeSantis isn’t breaking new ground here, because his state has a rich tradition of systemic homophobia.
Consider the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee in the 1950’s, also known as the Johns Committee after Sen. Charley Johns, who sought to tie the NAACP to the Communist Party. But when the Supreme Court rejected that idea, the Committee turned to rooting out homosexuality in universities and schools. They interrogated students and teachers, pressuring them to “out” themselves and others.
After nine years the Committee published “Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida,” arguing (falsely) that “many homosexuals have an insatiable appetite for sexual activities, and find special gratification in the recruitment to their ranks of youth.”
By the time the Committee disbanded, more than 200 teachers and students were fired or expelled for their sexuality.
With the Committee gone, “Florida Man” thinking went underground—for a while. In the 1970’s, Florida citrus industry spokesperson Anita Bryant organized her “Save Our Children” campaign in opposition to a Dade County ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Bryant argued that people didn’t arrive at “gayness” naturally. Instead, the gay community had to recruit new members in order to survive.
The DeSantis bill echoes the same nonsense.
Although ordinances all across America rebuffed Bryant’s homophobic efforts eventually, it came at a price. Many members of the gay community were fired from their jobs or assaulted—like murdered gardener Robert Hillsborough, stabbed 15 times in the face and chest as his assailants chanted “Faggot” and “Here’s one for Anita.”
The legacy of both Johns and Bryant is soiled because they “owned” the homophobia. But DeSantis has been careful to avoid such ownership because his bill gives the power of enforcement to homophobic parents, not to the state itself. Rather than explicitly banning a teacher’s speech on certain topics—a move that the state would have to enforce, and then defend appeals all the way to the Supreme Court—the DeSantis bill encourages parents to sue teachers and schools for engaging in educational topics with which they disagree. Thus, it is the parents who own the homophobia. All DeSantis will own is the fast-lane that makes it easier for homophobes to wield their sick, fear-based power. A small minority of parents will do his homophobic restrictive work for him, and it is they who will publicly wear the shame of it.
I guess it’s no surprise that an iconic “Florida Man” sits in the Florida governor’s mansion. After all, Florida lets “Florida Men (and Women)” vote.
Rumor has it that this Florida Man wants to run for President. If he does, we’ll find out how many votes he’ll get from “Florida Men (and Women)” in other states.
And if enough voting fools outside of Florida are duped by his shenanigans, oh what fun our national headlines will be!
TR Kerth is the author of the book “Revenge of the Sardines.” Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com.
