TALLAHASSEE, Florida (LifeSiteNews) — The office of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis sharply rebuked media outlet Axios and a Holocaust historian for using the latter’s purported academic credentials to malign a state law against LGBT indoctrination in public schools.
In 2022, Florida enacted its Parental Rights in Education law over intense left-wing activist and corporate pressure. The law bans schools from teaching children in kindergarten through third grade about transgenderism and other sexuality-related issues, limits discussions of sexuality for older children to “age appropriate” content and requires parents to be informed of any changes that could affect their child’s physical, emotional, or mental well-being. The following year, with the backing of a bigger Republican legislative majority, the ban was expanded to all grade levels.
Left-wing activists and their media allies misleadingly dubbed the measure a “Don’t Say Gay Bill,” framing it as a hateful attack on LGBT teachers and students and scoffing at the notion that it tackles a real problem, despite scores of examples of teachers engaging in LGBT activism in schools.
Despite their failure to dissuade lawmakers, opponents never stopped attacking the law. On Tuesday, Axios published a story with the ominous title “Holocaust historian sees parallels in today’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws.” It promoted a recent talk at the Florida Holocaust Museum by Dr. Jake Newsome, a self-described “award winning scholar of German and American LGBTQ+ history” who specializes in the Nazis’ persecution of homosexual men, one of many groups targeted during the Holocaust.
“Sound familiar?” Newsome asked the audience after detailing the Nazis’ banning of books promoting homosexuality. “In today’s era of the Republican Party’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bills, we need the pink triangle more than ever,” he added, referring to the identifying badges gay prisoners were made to wear in concentration camps.
Supporting Newsome’s narrative, Axios’ Kathryn Varn wrote that “Florida and other GOP-led states have recently passed legislation restricting health care, bathroom use and public expression for transgender and gay people,” and falsely denied there is evidence of LGBT indoctrination in schools.
Florida’s Voice reported that several DeSantis representatives quickly and strongly pushed back on such claims.
“Journo-activists continue to repeat the lies about the Parental Rights in Education bill that — just last week — the media had to admit were all fabricated when the settlement was reached that dismisses the case against the law,” communications director Bryan Griffin said. “(Axios) actually published a story amplifying and pushing the perspective of an activist who compared removing sexual content and radical gender identity from K-3rd grade public school classrooms with Nazi Germany. Dishonest media activism at its very worst.”
“This isn’t news. This is propaganda, and it has nothing to do with the Parental Rights in Education Act,” press secretary Jeremy Redfern added. “Equating parental rights with the Holocaust is absurd and disrespectful.”
“It is beyond absurd to equate Florida’s parental rights law, which prohibits instruction in gender ideology and age-inappropriate materials, to the Holocaust,” prominent DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw added. “Any historian who makes such claims makes a mockery of his profession."
The officials referred to a settlement reached earlier this month ending a legal challenge to the law, which LGBT activists tried to claim as a victory because it clarified that the law did not do certain things that were never in the law but the media accused it of doing, such as literally prohibiting any reference to homosexuality or transgenderism in schools.
“We fought hard to ensure this law couldn’t be maligned in court, as it was in the public arena by the media and large corporate actors,” Florida general counsel Ryan Newman said on March 11. “We are victorious, and Florida’s classrooms will remain a safe place under the Parental Rights in Education Act.”
DeSantis, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination this year, has made curbing the societal influence of woke ideology a cornerstone of his governorship, from K-12 schools and academia to revoking Disney’s special privilegesand divesting state funds from corporations involved in “social justice.”
Visitor Comments (0)
