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Behind the scenes at Team ReidOut, we’ve been keeping close watch on a new ruling in Russia that bans the LGBTQ movement, labeling it as “extremist.” The reason is that many on our staff see parallels between Russia’s crusade against LGBTQ people and Republicans’ similar crusade here in the U.S.
And Florida is helping make our point.
In a legal brief filed over the summer, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody argued that schools’ homophobic book bans are constitutional because “public-school systems, including their libraries, convey the government’s message, and, when the government speaks, it may ‘regulate the content of ... its own message.’”
Florida’s school libraries are a forum for government speech, not a “forum for free expression,” Moody wrote.
The brief came after federal lawsuits were filed in Florida against two county school boards that restricted students’ access to “And Tango Makes Three,” a children’s book based on the true story of two homosexual penguins that raised a chick together. In the Russophilic Republican imagination, this tale is too lewd for kids. In the suits, the book’s authors claim the school systems engaged in First Amendment violations.
In Putinesque fashion, the Florida AG argued that because schools are able to ban Nazi propaganda under “value-based judgments,” they should be allowed to make similar decisions about LGBTQ content.
In Putinesque fashion, the Florida AG argued that because schools are able to ban Nazi propaganda under “value-based judgments,” they should be allowed to make similar decisions about LGBTQ content. (Quite a revealing conflation there.)
Republicans have tried to restrict access to books about same-sex relationships while baselessly alleging that educators use such books to “groom” children, drawing a false link between LGBTQ people and child sex predation.
On Monday’s episode of “The ReidOut,” Joy discussed the hypocrisy of Florida Republicans, who have arguably led the charge nationally on anti-LGBTQ efforts. As the DeSantis administration’s brief shows, Florida’s crusade is being undertaken at the highest levels of state government — with open disdain for open access to information in schools.