Gay Books Go Back in the Closet

Let Florida's School Year Begin

I’m heading out on vacation for a couple of weeks. It’s not a relaxing, sit by a pool, and have someone bring you pink frothy drinks with umbrellas kind of vacation that we all desperately need right now. It’s more of a pack up the kids and an alarming number of your household possessions and relocate closer to a (but not right on the) beach vacation. There will still be kids and dishes and laundry, but there will also be oceans and ponds and lobsters and people I really like. While I’m sure the laptop(s) will be among the too many things loaded into the minivan (don’t knock it, I actually love my minivan), I do plan to take a break from writing and possibly from following the news.

I’ll be back at the end of August but before I go, I wanted to leave you with a few updates to stories we’ve been following.

1. Matt Gaetz inadvertently raises money for abortion.

Matt Gaetz may have picked on the wrong underaged girl. Okay, this one was 19 and an abortion rights activist. The Representative from Florida didn’t originally mention her by name but after the speech in which Gaetz said the women marching for abortion rights were too fat and ugly to get pregnant in the first place, she called him out on twitter and he tried to clap back.

Activist Oliva Juliana tweeted: “It has come to my attention that Matt Gaetz — alleged pedophile — has said that it’s always the ‘odious... 5’2” 350 pound” women that ‘nobody wants to impregnate’ who rally for abortion. I’m actually 5’11”. 6’4” in heels. I wear them so the small men like you are reminded of your place.” Gaetz retweeted it with the phrase “…dander raised” and a link to a Newsmax article about his speech in which the far-right outlet suggested his rant was sure to raise the dander of his political opponents. It was not a particularly clever tweet and starting a twitter war with a member of Gen Z is never a good idea.

Olivia tweeted back at Gaetz repeatedly (e.g. “Am I not a little too old for you Matt? I know you have a thing for targeting teenagers but 19 is on the cusp don’t you think?”), posted to TikTok, and started an onslaught of memes many of which featured Butt-Head from the 90’s animated series. Most importantly, though, she asked people to donate to the organization she works with, Gen Z for Change. In just a few days the social media scuffle pulled in $1.5 million in donations which the organization says will be divided between abortion funds in 50 states, especially in those with restrictive laws. Thanks Matt! (Gaetz may have gotten himself in more trouble this week as a hot mic incident from 2019 in which he promises Trump ally Roger Stone clemency became public.)

2. U.S. has not declared Monkeypox an emergency, but the governors of Illinois, New York, and California have, as have the mayors of San Francisco and New York.

3. #Boycott Walgreens Trends.

The story of Nate and Jess Pentz being denied condoms by John the checkout guy prompted other tales of Walgreen woes across social media. TikToker Abigail Martin said she was thwarted by a pharmacist when trying to refill her birth control pills. Martin claims that the person in the pharmacy (whom she described as wearing two crosses around her neck), looked her up and down and said she couldn’t refill the prescription. It took four days to get the pills—first Martin was told she was out of refills (she wasn’t), then that it was delayed, then that it was out of stock. Other stories on social media read more like, “No, really, it happened to my cousin’s friend at Tulane.” They are impossible to confirm.

That said, situations like this have happened over the years as most laws, both state and federal, support employees’ right to moral objections. In 1992, Congress passed a group of laws known as the Church Amendments. Among them were conscience clauses allowing health care providers to opt-out of care that goes against their religious views. Six states followed suit with conscience exemptions, and seven states allow pharmacists to refuse service but require them to make other arrangements for the patient. In contrast, eight states specifically do not allow such conscience objections.  

Both Walgreens and CVS have confirmed that their policies allow pharmacists and other employees to refuse to sell products that are in conflict with their religious beliefs. Spokespeople for both companies said they had policies in place to make sure customers’ needs were met (though not necessarily without hassle).

I think we will see more of these stories surfacing as the Dobbs case has both emboldened the pro-life movement and caused confusion about what is and isn’t allowed under new highly restrictive abortion laws in some states. This confusion is usually limited to emergency contraception, birth control, or one of the two drugs used for a medication abortion. The moral ground for opposing condoms is questionable—perhaps John believes spilling one’s seed for anything other than procreative purposes is an afront to God?

As for the couple at the center of the story, Nate Pentz has said he’s getting a vasectomy.

4. Florida Teachers Get Ready for Gay-Free Year.

Governor Ron DeSantis is running the totalitarian playbook and now he has teachers scared to say much of anything. During his time as governor of the sunshine state, he has allowed teachers to arm themselves in school but banned saying gay or teaching critical race theory (a.k.a. anything about slavery or racism). Now, his education department has issued a memo telling schools to ignore guidance from the Biden administration designed to reminded schools that they cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender. The state memo said the administration’s rules “should not be treated as governing law.”

It's two weeks before the school year starts, and educators are understandably confused about what they can and can’t do.

Miami Dade County has now changed its mind twice about a health education textbook.  In April the board agreed to adopt Comprehensive Health Skills for middle school and high school. The books cover nutrition, physical activity, and—you guessed it—human reproduction for grades 6 through 12. Lest you fear that students in Miami would actually get some sex ed, the approval came with an agreement to remove the chapter entitled “Understanding Sexuality.” (I’m picturing x-acto knives and a bonfire. You?)

Still, some “parents” in the district complained about other topics left in the book like emergency contraception. I put parents in quotes because one of the most vocal opponents was a leader of a far right group who sends his own kids to the “school” that wouldn’t let vaccinated teachers near children for fears of future infertility. (I put school in quotes for obvious reasons.)

The majority of parents seemed in favor of the health textbook, but the board voted on July 20 to rescind its approval for fear that even without the chapter on sexuality the book violated state law. A week later, Board President Perla Tabares Hantman, who was one of the no votes, called an emergency meeting in which she flipped her vote thereby bringing the book back. Hantman said she is still not a fan of the book but upon realizing that it would take months to find a replacement, she feared the school would be out of compliance with health standards and felt it was her duty as a policymaker to ensure that didn’t happen. I find it hard to believe that the DeSantis administration would care if there was just no health education in all of Miami, but I appreciate her sense of duty.  

Elsewhere in the state, teachers are wondering how far the don’t say gay ban really goes. The Washington Post tells of one teacher who is worried that she’ll open a can of worms if she mentions that astronaut Sally Ride was a lesbian, a few who are afraid to mention their own same-sex partners to students or bring in family pictures, and a district in which teachers are literally hiding books that might say gay in classroom closets (oh, for the love of irony).

Let the learning begin!

But first vacation.