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THE MIAMI-DADE County School Board in Florida voted Thursday in favor of a resolution to not recognize October as “LGBTQ Pride Month” in public schools.
After a more than six-hour discussion involving more than a dozen speakers and multiple debated viewpoints, the board decided 8-1 that the county’s public schools will not dedicate their spaces, curricula, or time in their schedules to the celebration.
The discussion was proposed by Lucia Baez-Geller, a member of the School Board, in a document that sought to “recognize and observe October 2022 as LGBTQ history month” with the aim of forcing the Superintendence to “support policies and practices” that “respect and support” LGBTQ students throughout the school year.
Education or indoctrination?
The movement against the initiative was led by the organization County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF), led locally by attorney Alex Serrano, who argued that the measure sought to instruct children in matters relating to sexuality, in contravention of the Parental Rights in Education Act.
“We believe this agenda item violates certain provisions of the Parental Rights in Education Law, the Parents Bill of Rights, and other Florida Statutes that provide for age-appropriateness, for the suitability of material/content/resources to our students’ needs, and for the ability of the minor children of our school district to comprehend material/content/resources that they are exposed to in the School Environment,” CCDF said in a statement.
BIG WIN! Miami-Dade School Board Votes Against LGBTQ Month and Curriculum 8-1!!
Thanks to Alex Serrano, Miami-Dade's Executive Director, and the CCDF Miami-Dade team for round the clock work!
#ccdfusa #miamidade #freedom #education #florida #countycitizensdefendingfreedom pic.twitter.com/3KFAWsDfBF— County Citizens Defending Freedom (@ccdfusa) September 8, 2022
The organization further felt that a district-wide recognition of LGBTQ history during the month of October would impose material, content and resources on all minor children, “in a manner that is not conducive to informed consent or adequate provisions for parents to opt-out from their children being exposed to these materials, content, and resources.”
Those who spoke in favor of the initiative argued that it would promote a more tolerant environment for students of different sexual preferences. Some of them even went so far as to say that part of not dedicating an entire month to the celebration of the LGBT agenda was a form of exclusion similar to slavery and Nazism.
Speaker Alberto Cairo, for example, said that “LGBTQ history is American history” and that opposing its teaching in the classroom is part of a rhetoric that “dehumanizes and demonizes” minorities, as had been done repeatedly in the past “against Jews, African-Americans and gays.”
Speaker Patricia Moore, on the other hand, believes that public schools “are not here to indoctrinate” children “with the LGBTIQ agenda ideology,” and argued that the American education system “was not designed to teach children about sexuality.”
All Board members, both Democrats and Republicans, voted against the resolution, except for Baez-Geller.
Tomás Lugo, journalist and writer. Born in Venezuela and graduated in Social Communication. Has written for international media outlets. Currently living in Colombia // Tomás Lugo, periodista y articulista. Nacido en Venezuela y graduado en Comunicación Social. Ha escrito para medios internacionales. Actualmente reside en Colombia.