Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a
Republican, has defended a Florida bill dubbed “Don't Say Gay.”
Lawmakers approved the bill last week
and sent it to Republican Governor Ron DeSantis for his signature.
DeSantis has signaled his support for the measure.
The legislation seeks to prohibit
classroom “instruction” on sexual orientation and gender identity
in grades K-3 and other classroom settings where it's “not
age-appropriate.”
During an interview with a local ABC
station, Rubio decried opponents of the legislation for calling it
“Don't Say Gay,” saying that the label was “ridiculous.”
“That's not what the bill is about at
all,” Rubio said. “The bill basically says that sexual
orientation is just not something schools should be talking to
children about from kindergarten to sixth grade.”
“We don't send kids to school so the
schools can raise our kids. We send them so they can teach them.
Raising kids are the job of parents and families, not schools. And so
that's what that bill does.”
“We send our kids to school to learn
how to read, to learn how to write, to learn about history, to
acquire academic proficiency. We don't send kids to school so the
schools can raise our kids,” he added.
It should be noted that the LGBTQ
community's struggle for greater acceptance, visibility, and rights
is part of the fabric of American history. From Stonewall to
Obergefell, the history of the movement continues to evolve.
Rubio, who has presidential ambitions,
scored zero on the Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) Congressional
Scorecard, a measure of a lawmaker's support for LGBTQ rights.