Challenge to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” Law Dismissed

metroweekly.com:

WUSF Public Media.The law, signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis after being passed by Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature, prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade and requires that such instructions be “age-appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate” in older grades.

But opponents of the law claim the law is rife with opportunities for teachers and administrators to discriminate against LGBTQ students and children of same-sex parents in order to avoid offending conservative parents, who are empowered to sue for alleged violations of the law.In the lawsuit, first filed in March and amended in May, the plaintiffs claimed that the law violates their First Amendment and due process rights.

They claim that, in order to comply with the law, teachers will restrict students’ free speech rights, ban LGBTQ-related books from libraries or classrooms, and prohibit student-run LGBTQ clubs, such as Gender and Sexuality Alliances from either forming or from receiving equal access to resources as other student clubs.For example, Zander Moricz, a plaintiff and 18-year-old former senior class president at Pine View School in Osprey, Florida, said he was told by teachers that he would be restricted from discussing LGBTQ rights in class — even before the law officially went into effect.For example, when he was slated to address his class at his graduation ceremony, Moricz clams administrators told him they would cut his microphone if he dared to talk about his activism on behalf of LGBTQ rights.

So Moricz gave a graduation speech using the euphemism “curly hair” as a stand-in for the term “gay.”Another plaintiff, known as “M.A.,” from Palmetto, Florida, claims.