Remember how Republicans said ‘Don’t say gay’ law only applied to grades K-3? Big lie | Opinion

The Miami-Dade County School Board revealed itself this week for what it is.

In an 8-1 vote Wednesday night, the School Board rejected the national recognition of October as LGBTQ History Month, proving that the intent all along of Florida’s “Don’t say gay” law was to hurt, shame and keep gay children and parents in the closet.

But the shame is theirs.

These elected officials showcased their anti-gay bias, acting like a right-wing political body, beholden to the ring leader in Tallahassee, Gov. Ron DeSantis, and his minion GOP lawmakers.

Cowardly, and at the same time autocratic, all but one member acted dismissively of Miami-Dade’s diverse student population, signaling that they don’t care about the concerns of all parents and the education of all children.

Only those who fit the governor’s preferred political profile will be served.

Non-partisanship all but gone from what’s supposed to be an apolitical body, “parental rights” now mean an invitation for hate groups like the Proud Boys to park themselves outside the School Board meeting, for homophobic people to air their prejudices as valid concern and for religious fanatics to determine the curriculum and school culture for everyone else.

Nothing like the white-nationalist group that led the storming of the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to destroy democracy, intimidating parents and School Board members — and having a say in school policy.

Nothing like two African-American School Board members, Democrats Steve Gallon III and Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall, voting against LBGTQ kids on the side of Proud Boys.

READ MORE: After debate citing indoctrination and Nazis, Miami-Dade School Board rejects LGBTQ month

It’s especially shameful for Miami, a community that had long overcome its homophobia and prided itself on being accepting, inclusive and multicultural.

And the radical, right-wing squeeze will only deepen after the two recently elected and DeSantis-endorsed Monica Colucci and Roberto Alonso take over the District 8 and District 4 School Board seats now held by Marta Pérez and Perla Tabares Hantman. They were considered moderate Republicans, although they didn’t show it Wednesday.

This is what happens when only 19% of voters show up in a life-altering primary like August’s in Miami-Dade: The partisans who faithfully vote take over, and democratic institutions like public-school systems suffer.

POLL: Did the Miami-Dade School Board get it right when they rejected the LGBTQ measures?

Board members pushing political agendas belong in private education, where they can shape schools to their liking. But here they are, on the taxpayers’ dime, refusing to allow teaching 12th-graders in October about LGBTQ Americans’ role in their fight for civil rights, the way it’s done during Hispanic and Black heritage months.

Don’t Say Gay

But there’s a silver lining to the way School Board members so dutifully carried out DeSantis’ agenda at the first opportunity.

During the discussion, these supposed public servants convinced each other that marking LGBTQ History Month would violate the state’s new Parental Rights Law — the same one that DeSantis and GOP lawmakers insisted didn’t target gays, didn’t apply to all school children and had nothing to do with gayness because the bill didn’t specifically contain the word “gay.”

“Don’t say gay” is an invention of Democrats, they argued when faced with backlash from the state’s gay voting community, which includes the queer Republican political organization Log Cabin Republicans.

Big lie, anyone who heard the Florida House and Senate debates knew — then and now.

Big lie, anyone who follows Trump-mimicking DeSantis knew — then and now.

READ MORE: We see through the lies, Gov. DeSantis, and know exactly what ‘Don’t Say Gay’ is all about | Opinion

High school, too

DeSantis and GOP lawmakers also said that the law banning gender-identity discussion and instruction only applied to grades K-3.

Big lie, too — as now everyone in the Miami-Dade Public School system is banned from marking Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer History Month the way they did last year.

Also banned is teaching 12th-graders — we’re talking 17- and 18-year-old college-bound students — about two landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases that recognized the rights of LGBTQ people to marry and be protected from workplace discrimination. Civics lessons that weren’t forced on students, another Republican lie. Whoever wanted to could opt out.

Don’t say gay, indeed — in all grades, in all schools.

It’s short-sighted and harmful to students and, when coupled with book-banning and the racist, white-washing of Black history, will deprive students of developing the depth of critical-thinking skills necessary to excel in higher education.

All because ideologues and profit-seekers in Miami-Dade, not satisfied with only siphoning our taxpayer school funding from public to private education, want to dominate the community conversation and the voting booth.

They think they can force children, theirs and ours, to grow up to be straight, religious and conservative. Fine, let’s talk gay and Jesus.

First, it’s not a very Christian concept to exclude others.

Whatever happened to, “We’re all God’s children?” Aren’t gay kids also God’s children? Aren’t gay parents? Or does the pious phrase only apply to zygotes and embryos when you’re trying to ban abortion?

Rejecting gays isn’t very democratic, either.

You know who else ostracized gay men and lesbians?

The Nazis and Fidel Castro.

This, too, now is the Florida way — and the Miami-Dade School Board got down to the ugly business of exclusion.

Others won’t have to wait long until they too find out they’re coming after them.