Gay rights organizations are slamming a proposed bill that they say would cripple LGBTQ nonprofit groups in Florida.
“It would be devastating to organizations like ours,” said Todd Delmay, executive director of the Miami-based group SAVE. “It could make very difficult the work we have done for 30 years protecting, promoting and defending equality for LGBTQ+ people in Florida. But that’s the point. … It is primarily meant to sow division and fear.”
Filed by state Rep. Ryan Chamberlin, R-Marion, the bill (HB 599) would prevent nonprofit groups or any employers who receive state funding from requiring training on “sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.” If enacted, it would be a major expansion from the initial focus on schools in the Parental Rights in Education Act, called the “don’t say gay” law by its critics.
“The original justification no longer applies,” said Gregory Koger, a professor of political science at the University of Miami. “This isn’t about schools. This isn’t about children. This is about how every Florida person is supposed to speak to every other Florida person in the so-called free state of Florida.”
The bill, which doesn’t yet have a Senate companion, also would prevent businesses from disciplining employees for refusing to use other people’s preferred pronouns,
In an email, Chamberlin said the legislation was needed “to protect Florida’s non-profit workers.”
“The bill focuses on taxpayer-funded organizations and businesses to prevent them from forcing (requiring) employees to participate in gender sensitivity or pronoun training and conduct that is married to a penalty for non-participation,” Chamberlin said. “If an employee recognizes a person by their birth gender or does not want to participate in gender sensitivity training, they should not be reprimanded or fired.”
He said any gay rights nonprofit that receives state funding “can have pronoun training and any…
Read the full article here
