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Children are increasingly exposed to harmful gender ideology. Florida Governor Ron De Santis has pushed back to protect young school children from sexualisation. Bizarrely, Disney isn’t happy about it.

This week, Florida Governor Ron De Santis signed the ‘Parental Rights in Education’ bill into law after it recently passed both of the state’s houses.

“I don’t care what corporate media outlets say, I don’t care what Hollywood says, I don’t care what big corporations say. Here I stand, I’m not backing down,” De Santis told media and a cheering crowd at the signing of HB 1557.

The Wonderful Cult of Disney

The new law has been a lightning rod for woke outrage over recent weeks. With the support of the corporate press, critics have labelled it the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill and characterised it as an attack on LGBT youth.

De Santis’s reference to Hollywood was an obvious response to last night’s Oscars, where co-host Wanda Sykes took a cheap, if inaccurate, jab at the bill in her opening monologue.

A more serious and enduring critic of the legislation, whom De Santis also had in view in his reference to both Hollywood and ‘big corporations’, was Disney.

Following the passage of the law, the Walt Disney Company’s Twitter account released a statement today announcing that:

Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organisations working to achieve that. We are dedicated to standing up for the rights and safety of LGBTQ+ members of the Disney family, as well as the LGBTQ+ community in Florida and across the country. 

Don’t Say Gay?

In fact, the legislation says nothing about the people Disney mentioned in its statement. Instead, it shields children between the ages of 4 and 8 from sexualised content in their school curriculum. It also doesn’t mention the word ‘gay’, or ban use of the word ‘gay’ — in schools or anywhere else.

The controversial clause of the new law simply states:

Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade three or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.

Among the many other things not banned in the new law are children discussing sexuality or gender identity with their parents, with each other, or even with their teachers for that matter. The law doesn’t ban conversations, rather, it prevents classroom curriculum that catechises young children into gender ideology.

Also protected in the law is transparency, so that parents are aware of what is being taught in their child’s classroom, and the sorts of conversations that are taking place between their child and school staff. The principle purpose of the law is to place the burden for teaching young children about sex and gender back where it belongs: under the purview of parents.

Grades K-3 are the main focus of Florida’s new law. But even for older students, whom woke activists have purportedly been defending, classroom instruction on sexuality and gender identity is allowed, so long as it is at an “age-appropriate” level.

Wanted: More Anti-Grooming Laws

One must ask why Disney is so outraged over this legislation. It is not uncommon today for corporations to virtue-signal on woke politics. But a children’s entertainment empire stating that it is their “goal as a company” to make sure kindergarteners can learn about gender fluidity, trans rights and sex acts?

We could be generous and suggest that the leadership of this $200 billion behemoth has misunderstood the bill, or thoughtlessly jumped on a bandwagon. But it seems improbable.

More likely, Disney executives comprehend the bill perfectly well, and they still wish for the state to step between children and their parents to introduce rainbow sexuality to kids who would otherwise be learning the alphabet, phonics and basic maths.

While it has been called the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill by critics, defenders have called it an anti-grooming law — and accurately so. Why should adults be allowed to expose young minds to decadent concepts that children of past generations knew nothing about? Moreover, why would any of this need to be hidden from parents?

Children are our heritage. They should be protected from the increasing sexual perversion of woke culture. This truth may be unpopular, but it is one that Christians of all people must hold to unbendingly.

One of the most courageous politicians in Australia who is fighting the same fight as De Santis is NSW One Nation MLC Mark Latham. His Parental Rights Bill has recently been tabled after sitting on the shelf throughout the duration of Covid-19. Latham’s bill desperately deserves to be passed, both for the children of NSW and to set a precedent for other states.

You can sign the petition to call for the NSW Government to pass Mark Latham’s Parental Rights Bill here.