[Edward64]

Before I respond to miami_fan's post Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - The Biden Presidency - 2020, I want to level set and restate my beliefs & assumptions in this post so we (hopefully) minimize going back and forth to the Biden thread (and any reading comprehension issues).

1) What the FL law states. Obviously there are more details but I've used this paragraph as a condensed summary. If you do not believe this is sufficient for our discussion, feel free to quote other passages.

Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.

2) Not being an attorney, what I've read is the law is written vaguely and open to different interpretations. I've been asked by some of you why that is and my responses have been

I do agree there is a strategy in making the wording ambiguous. Its for maximum flexibility to act or not and it is for DeSantis/GOP's benefit.

I think what you are really saying to me is "look, this law isn't about instructing on all sexual orientation or gender identity, it is really about instructing on LGBTQ sexual orientation or gender identity", I agree with you. It really is that regardless of the more neutral wording in the law. I'm still okay with leaving those discussions for parents to handle for 3rd graders and below.

There is no doubt it is for political gain. Absolutely no doubt. Part of that is for DeSantis to show he is fighting back (imaginary or not) against the wokeness which plays to his (and Trump's) base.

For DeSantis, it's really for DeSantis to score political points for sure. There are likely other reasons but definitely primarily to score political points in anticipation of him being an alternative to Trump.

Yes, I can see its a toehold for more stuff to come especially if he is going to run for the GOP nomination.

Although I do believe political leaders who support it are doing it primarily for their own political gains, I did say and believe

It still does not belie the fact (IMO) that some topics are better left for parents to discuss with a 3rd grader vs some public school teacher.

Maybe there is a nuance I don't understand, but it seems pretty simple to me. Don't get into these type of discussions in public schools for those kids under 3rd grade. I'm not sure what age is appropriate but say maybe middle school.

I can easily concede the bill is not detailed enough or factors in all the possibilities but there's is a sense of "reasonableness" where no school board is going to fire my wife because she introduced me as such. And BTW, I sure as heck hope they do, because I'll call Morgan & Morgan (or like) and pretty sure we'll win a nice lawsuit and set us up for life.

3) There were some discussion on 2 similar points.

How this law would prevent "any and all mention of LGBTQ from the classroom" (3rd grade and below).

There was another comment about "in essence threatened all teachers to stay out of anything even remotely possibly controversial at all in the smallest corners of any consideration or what they can lose their profession so they need to just stfu on anything close to anything close to anything close to these topics"

I do not believe the first. And I can sympathize with second but do believe the highlighted section overstates the intent of the legislation.

For the first paragraph, I stated below. If you believe instruction = mention, there is really nothing more to discuss as I don't see how we can even try reconciliate our positions.

If you believe "instruction" = "mention" then we'll agree to disagree and the courts will ultimate arbitrate what that means.

And for the second, I stated

There will definitely be a period of transition for sure where teachers are uncertain on what is possible or not. And its for those teaching 3rd grade and below. "Boundaries" will be tested, lawsuits will be initiated (or not), and the definitions will get more clear.

Using the example in prior posts, go ahead and terminate my wife because she introduced me as her husband to 3rd graders. It'll be a welcome windfall (albeit after the 2-3 years of legal back and forth).

4) There are 2 sets of questions posed by others in the Biden thread that I plan to answer

A couple people mentioned there is no curriculum for "sexual orientation or gender identity" and therefore why is the law is needed.

Or stated another way "What discussions do you think teachers are having with the third graders that should be left to the parents?"

I've been doing some research and trying to understand this myself. I will answer in a post below however my initial answer was

This is a fair question and agree that I've not answered it well. I do believe it is a reaction of (real or not) wokeness that DeSantis wants to leverage.

I assume this law came to be because DeSantis & supporters are anticipating the growing "problem in society" of wokeness.

Also another question I'll answer/share my thoughts on are the comparative use cases between Mr. & Mrs. White that miami_fan brought up

I have given you numerous examples of age appropriate discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity that have been a part of teacher-student interactions forever and will continue to happen without some sudden need for parental consent. The fact those interactions involved LGBTQ+ people should not make them illegal. Why can't Mr. White can't tell his third graders what he and his husband did over the summer without parental consent but Mrs. White can? Why can't Mr. White say that he is married to his husband without parental consent but Mrs. White can? Why can't Mr. White have his husband come in and discuss the meaning of Father's Day or Veteran's Day to him without parental consent but Mrs. White can? How is it that when Mr. White does those things, it is grooming but when Mrs. White does the same things using the exact same words it is not? It was and is fine for Mrs White to go into great depth on all those things but Mr. White is supposed to have a stunted one sentence response and stop right there? And if he does not, he runs the risk of being brought up on disciplinary charges? Yeah no thanks.

5) Because I used the term woke(ness) in my answers (like in #2 & #4 above), the question was asked what is my definition.

I'll go with the wiki definition Woke - Wikipedia

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/ WOHK) is an English adjective meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination" that originated in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism, and has also been used as shorthand for American Left ideas involving identity politics and social justice, such as the notion of white privilege and slavery reparations for African Americans.

The phrase stay woke had emerged in AAVE by the 1930s, in some contexts referring to an awareness of the social and political issues affecting African Americans. The phrase was uttered in a recording by Lead Belly and later by Erykah Badu. Following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, the phrase was popularised by Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists seeking to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans. After seeing use on Black Twitter, the term woke became an Internet meme and was increasingly used by white people, often to signal their support for BLM, which some commentators have criticised as cultural appropriation. Mainly associated with the millennial generation, the term spread internationally and was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017.