“Perhaps backers of the 'don’t say gay' bill believe that if you stop teachers from talking about LGBTQ people, then eventually the public won’t remember events like the Pulse shooting,” writes LZGranderson for latimesopinion.
It was Kenny Washington and the Rams that broke the league’s color barrier, a year before Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers integrated Major League Baseball.Last week, Republican legislators in Florida advanced HB 1557 — affectionately dubbed the “don’t say gay” bill — which would ban discussions about sexual orientation or gender identity in schools, effectively erasing LGBTQ history, culture and people from the classroom.
And yet we shouldn’t put it past DeSantis to sign this bill. Last June, as the five-year anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando approached, the governor vetoed funding for mental health programs for survivors of the attack. He also declared June 12 to be Pulse Remembrance Day to honor the 49 people who were killed that night in 2016.
Perhaps backers of the “don’t say gay” bill believe that if you stop teachers from talking about LGBTQ people, then eventually the public won’t remember events like the Pulse shooting. That’s how the race massacres in Tulsa and Wilmington were swept under the rug until the murder of George Floyd.