Borowicz spearheads ‘don’t say gay’ bill in Pa. – Lock Haven Express
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HARRISBURG — Pa. GOP state lawmakers are pushing a bill to limit school instruction that is more expansive than the Florida legislation that has been described by its opponents as the “don’t say gay” law. And Clinton County’s state representative is spearheading the intiative.
“It is patterned after the Florida bill, but mine goes further,” said Rep. Stephanie Borowicz (R-Clinton/Centre), the bill’s prime sponsor.
During a rally at the Capitol on Tuesday, Borowicz along with other Republican lawmakers and supporters framed the legislation, House Bill 2813, as a way to guarantee parental oversight and control over the availability of school materials that they portrayed as increasingly obscene.
But advocates for the LGBTQ community say the bill’s language, like Florida’s, is intentionally vague and meant to create a climate where schools stifle any discussion of LGBTQ people for fear of running afoul of the law, which creates a mechanism for parents to sue schools they feel have provided inappropriate material to their children.
The key part of the bill states that any public or charter school “may not offer instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity to a student in kindergarten through fifth grade.”
Florida’s bill, which became law earlier this year, contains nearly identical language, but applies it only through third grade. Borowicz made it clear Tuesday that her desire would be to extend the prohibition all the way through high school, even though the current text of her bill goes only through grade five.
“It really needs to be protected up through 12th grade, we need to go all the way,” she told reporters, voicing support for the similar Senate Bill 1278, which would allow schools to be sued for material that is “not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate” at any grade level.
SB1278 passed the state Senate in June. Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, vowed to veto such legislation and any bills resembling it. The GOP gubernatorial candidate, Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Adams/Franklin), appeared briefly at Tuesday’s event to voice full-throated support for such measures.
Borowicz’s bill also contains requirements for parents to be notified about health services provided through schools, enabling parents to sue if they believe information was withheld or if a school has “the effect of encouraging” students to withhold information from their parents.
Although the specific target of these provisions is left ambiguous in the bill, Borowicz was clear Tuesday that she was targeting “gender ideology,” decrying schools that require the use of transgender students’ preferred pronouns.
What enforcement would look like, if HB2813 was to become law, is not entirely clear. Asked what sort of communication would constitute “instruction” under the bill, Borowicz said, “I’m not going to get into the details of all that.”
In Florida, some districts have interpreted such language stringently, with teachers questioning whether they’ll be able to keep a photo of their same-sex spouse on their desk for fear sparking a discussion with students that could lead to legal consequences, according to reporting from outlets such as Time and PBS. The effect has led opponents of the measure to dub it the “don’t say gay” law.
“Laws like this put (schools) in a terrible position where they have to act very cautiously and create broad buffer zones where they may restrict more speech than they’re required to just to avoid being sued,” said Casey Pick, senior fellow for advocacy and government affairs at The Trevor Project, a mental health advocacy group for LGBTQ youth.
Although the plain text of the Pennsylvania bill would include a ban on any instruction regarding sexual identity — even heterosexuality — the rhetoric around such laws has clearly targeted LGBTQ people, Pick said.
“That is being interpreted as you can’t discuss the minority sexual or gender identity,” Pick said. “What you ultimately wind up with is a climate where schools and teachers feel unable to address the needs of students,” particularly if those students have LGBTQ family members or are questioning their sexuality themselves.
“This will really add to the existing targeting and bullying of LGBTQ kids in schools,” said Sharon Ward, senior policy advisor for the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania. “The intent of these bills seems to be to wipe out any discussion and pretend that (LGBTQ people) don’t exist.”
Speakers at Tuesday’s rally stressed that such laws are necessary to eliminate what they viewed as obscene materials from classrooms and libraries. Such materials are present because, in the words of Rep. Milou Mackenzie, R-Lehigh/Montgomery/Northampton, “these ideologies have crept into the curriculum and into the mindset of the faculty.”
The most concrete allegations of this were presented Tuesday by Fenicia Redman, who sued the state after she said she found that her son’s school library had books such as “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Tantric Sex,” as well as graphic novels depicting intimate homosexual relationships.
Redman’s suit alleges this content was available at Great Valley High School; such content would not fall under the auspices of HB2813, which applies only through fifth grade.
Many attendees carried signs depicting the titles of books they wanted to see eliminated from libraries and classrooms. Among them was Kelly Potteiger, a Cumberland Valley School District resident who filed formal challenges to three books in the district’s library system she wanted removed because they contained sexually explicit passages.
Potteiger said Tuesday she was told the district ultimately decided to retain the books.
A report issued this week by free-speech group PEN America showed Pennsylvania ranked third in the nation for the number of book titles banned in school libraries, with books featuring LGBTQ content overwhelmingly targeted most frequently — although some legislators tried to argue Tuesday that what they were seeking did not constitute a ban because the material is available elsewhere.
But Ward said the message that LGBTQ experiences were not to be mentioned in classrooms or libraries “is going to have a chilling effect on relationships between teachers and students” were the bill to become law.
Pick pointed to survey data from The Trevor Project showing that LGBTQ students who were able to discuss issues of gender and sexuality in school were 23 percent less likely to report a suicide attempt, and that having a supportive adult — which could be a teacher — reduced the risk of suicide for LGBTQ youth by 40 percent.