READ MORE: Disney takes on balancing act as workers walk out in protest of Florida’s anti-LGBTQ legislation I can’t even talk to my teacher,’” she said. The message every child who hears that gets is ‘there’s something wrong with my family here. “If a child has two moms and the teacher says ‘yeah, we’re not going to talk about that, that’s a conversation you need to have with your parents,’ everything changes. Smith also expressed concern for how teachers would be required to respond to children with LGBTQ+ parents. That’s rhetoric just before they start coming for our children,” said Smith, the parent of a fourth grader. “In the 1970s and 1980s, it lead to the passage of laws in Florida banning gay people from adopting their own children, children they were already raising … We can’t take it lightly when the governor’s office implies we’re pedophiles. “There’s a long history of invoking the ugly stereotype,” she told The 19th. She objects to the idea that there is something inherently sexual around discussing LGBTQ+ issues with children or that it is somehow predatory. Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, believes that kind of rhetoric is dangerous. “For kindergarteners or first graders or second graders, the classroom instruction they’re getting should not be involving sexuality… If you’re protesting this law, you’re in favor of injecting sexual instruction into 5-, 6- and 7-year-old kids,” DeSantis recently told WPTV. DeSantis’s press secretary, Christine Pushaw, described it as an “ anti-grooming bill” on Twitter. It said ‘I love my family,’” she told The 19th.ĭeSantis has not only framed the bill as a matter of parental rights, but as a way to protect kids. And when I opened the phone, it was a picture of my daughter with the biggest smile on her face and a drawing that she drew. “My daughter’s school sends updates and pictures of what they’re doing throughout the day. “When kids are young, their families are their whole world,” he told The 19th. VanTice is worried that children, including his sons, might effectively be barred from normal school activities like drawing pictures of family or writing assignments about what they did with their family over summer vacation - all possible situations within the expansive bill language. But those rights are the ones that the bill is trying to diminish and eliminate,” he continued. I’m a parent and I have rights and my family has rights. “It’s ironic that it’s called a parental rights bill. VanTice and his husband, Brent, have two 7-year-old sons. “If our kids aren’t allowed to talk about their families, it’s basically saying are less-than,” said Dan VanTice, a father living in Jacksonville. At a press conference Tuesday, DeSantis said he would sign it “relatively soon.” Ron DeSantis, who has already said he will ink it into law. The bill states that instruction of “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.” It does not define “age-appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate.” Parents are allowed to sue school districts for anything they feel may violate the law. READ MORE: Florida passes ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill despite protests The bill’s vague language has caused some LGBTQ+ parents to worry that their children will be stifled, unable to talk about their families at school like other kids do. Her family is one of thousands in Florida potentially impacted by the recent passage of the Parental Rights in Education Act, nicknamed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by LGBTQ+ advocates. And she’s so proud to have two mommies,” Perez said. The most important thing in Janelle Perez’s life is her family. This article was originally published by The 19th on March 28, 2022.