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First, the bill does not say you cannot teach that gay people exist. It says you can instruct students on sexual orientation. This only applies through 3rd grad

First, the bill does not say you cannot teach that gay people exist. It says you can instruct students on sexual orientation. This only applies through 3rd grade (about 8 or 9 years old). As far as I know there are no health classes or sex ed prior to 10 years old. Any talk about sexual orientation or gender identity would not be relevant to the subject material. There is no reason why a young kids needs to be instructed about such things. Any author or historical figure who is gay could still be taught. Second, this only applies to classroom instruction. If a student stays after class they could ask their teacher about sexual orientation if they are wondering why a student has two dads or something. Some may try to extend the law to cover that, but as far as I can tell it wouldn't apply to that.

lovich 5y ago
I can make the question simpler since I didn’t seem to convey what I meant. If the law functionally prevents X without explicitly stating that they are intending to prevent X, does that make a difference to you?
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  I understood what you were asking. I reject the premise. Teachers can literally still teach gay people exist so long as it is part of the curriculum and they do it in an age appropriate manner. If they were intending to ban X (and presumably promote Y) they shouldn't write a bill that also bans Y. (Y being straight).
  - lovich 5y ago
    You’ve yet to answer to my question on whether it matters when bills functionally block something without explicitly stating so. If you want to infer some assumptions without answering some basic axioms so we can make sure we’re on the same page and not arguing past each other, I’ll just dive in. Since I’m seeing many supporters of the bill get incensed at the fact that Y is also functionally banned, and been told that I should know what the bill is “really about”, and that the bill does not define “age appropriate”, I reject your rejection of the premise. There’s a chilling effect of the government saying you could be in legal trouble for this, but they won’t let you know what the line is until you’ve crossed it. That causes people to pull their behavior far back from wherever they think the nebulous line might be.
    - _-david-_ 5y ago
      I hope I am not coming off as incensed as you mentioned some people are. To answer your question, despite its irrelevance, I don't mind if a bill functionally blocks something so long as it would be constitutional / legal if they were to explicitly block that thing. I tend to prefer explicit to prevent any confusion. If you think this bill functionally blocks talking about gay people existing then it also functionally blocks talking about straight people existing. I agree there is no age appropriate definition, but I don't really mind. I don't think any teacher who is teaching 3rd grade and younger should instruct about any sexual orientation or gender identity regardless if they do it in an age appropriate manner so I don't particularly care if teachers are afraid of talking about sexual orientation to 5 year olds. I wish the bill went further and just outright banned any instruction on the topic to kids in 3rd grade and younger without the age appropriate portion. Unfortunately due to the age appropriate wording a teacher may be able to instruct about sexual orientation to kids who are too young to be hearing it.
      - lovich 5y ago
        I agree that the letter of the law also prevents mentioning straight people, but I have no expectation that the law will be enforced on anything but gay/trans issues. There’s no way to completely excise this sort of topic from conversation even with young children. You don’t have to get into sexually explicit conversation but even the concept of having a mom and a dad is a functional consequence of sexual orientation and children are aware of the fact that they have parents from much younger than third grade. Given the impossibility of removing all discussion on the topic I have no reason to believe that the Florida state government is going to enforce this law equally, and instead expect selective enforcement against their political enemies. Their base expects this too based on my conversations with supporters of the law who don’t think that any discussion of heterosexually linked topics will be banned and only homosexual ones will. That gets back to my point about the functional blocking in the law, which youve stated you’re fine with if it’s constitutional. As the SCOTUS already ruled that sexuality can’t be used as a determinate in discriminatory laws during the gay marriage case due to the fact that it relies on gender information which is a protected class, I can’t see how anyone who’s pro constitution is cool with this bill

lovich 5y ago

I can make the question simpler since I didn’t seem to convey what I meant. If the law functionally prevents X without explicitly stating that they are intending to prevent X, does that make a difference to you?

_-david-_ 5y ago
I understood what you were asking. I reject the premise. Teachers can literally still teach gay people exist so long as it is part of the curriculum and they do it in an age appropriate manner. If they were intending to ban X (and presumably promote Y) they shouldn't write a bill that also bans Y. (Y being straight).
- lovich 5y ago
  You’ve yet to answer to my question on whether it matters when bills functionally block something without explicitly stating so. If you want to infer some assumptions without answering some basic axioms so we can make sure we’re on the same page and not arguing past each other, I’ll just dive in. Since I’m seeing many supporters of the bill get incensed at the fact that Y is also functionally banned, and been told that I should know what the bill is “really about”, and that the bill does not define “age appropriate”, I reject your rejection of the premise. There’s a chilling effect of the government saying you could be in legal trouble for this, but they won’t let you know what the line is until you’ve crossed it. That causes people to pull their behavior far back from wherever they think the nebulous line might be.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    I hope I am not coming off as incensed as you mentioned some people are. To answer your question, despite its irrelevance, I don't mind if a bill functionally blocks something so long as it would be constitutional / legal if they were to explicitly block that thing. I tend to prefer explicit to prevent any confusion. If you think this bill functionally blocks talking about gay people existing then it also functionally blocks talking about straight people existing. I agree there is no age appropriate definition, but I don't really mind. I don't think any teacher who is teaching 3rd grade and younger should instruct about any sexual orientation or gender identity regardless if they do it in an age appropriate manner so I don't particularly care if teachers are afraid of talking about sexual orientation to 5 year olds. I wish the bill went further and just outright banned any instruction on the topic to kids in 3rd grade and younger without the age appropriate portion. Unfortunately due to the age appropriate wording a teacher may be able to instruct about sexual orientation to kids who are too young to be hearing it.
    - lovich 5y ago
      I agree that the letter of the law also prevents mentioning straight people, but I have no expectation that the law will be enforced on anything but gay/trans issues. There’s no way to completely excise this sort of topic from conversation even with young children. You don’t have to get into sexually explicit conversation but even the concept of having a mom and a dad is a functional consequence of sexual orientation and children are aware of the fact that they have parents from much younger than third grade. Given the impossibility of removing all discussion on the topic I have no reason to believe that the Florida state government is going to enforce this law equally, and instead expect selective enforcement against their political enemies. Their base expects this too based on my conversations with supporters of the law who don’t think that any discussion of heterosexually linked topics will be banned and only homosexual ones will. That gets back to my point about the functional blocking in the law, which youve stated you’re fine with if it’s constitutional. As the SCOTUS already ruled that sexuality can’t be used as a determinate in discriminatory laws during the gay marriage case due to the fact that it relies on gender information which is a protected class, I can’t see how anyone who’s pro constitution is cool with this bill