The Catholic governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, is resisting political pressure from the LGBT community in the latest culture war battle. DeSantis is expected to sign into law the “Parental Rights in Education” bill that passed the Florida legislature last week. The law prohibits “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” for children in public schools under the age of ten.
Critics of the law have dubbed it the “don’t say gay” bill and one of Florida’s largest employers, the Disney Corporation, acknowledged it reached out to DeSantis and urged him not to sign the bill into law. “I called Governor DeSantis this morning to express our disappointment and concern that if legislation becomes law, it could be used to unfairly target gay, lesbian, non-binary and transgender kids and families,” Disney CEO Bob Chapek told a shareholder meeting.
DeSantis told supporters: “First graders shouldn’t have ‘woke’ gender ideology imposed in their curriculums.”
Conservative Catholics are lining up to support the new law. “It’s a legislation about transparency so that the parents can understand what their children are being exposed to,” Deacon Patrick Lappert, a board-certified plastic surgeon and deacon for the Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama, told the National Catholic Register. He also serves as a chaplain to Courage, a group that helps members of the LGBT community live in accordance with Church teaching about sexuality.
“Essentially, what [the laws’ proponents are] claiming is that a school nurse, or a schoolteacher, has greater insight into the life of their child” than a parent, Lappert said. “There are so many more things at play in the life of a child that a parent would know vastly better than a schoolteacher who sees that child for five hours a day.”
In Washington DC, the mandate that healthcare workers get vaccinated against Covid continues to be a battlefield in the culture wars. Sr Dierdre Byrne, who is a nurse, refused to get the vaccine and her request for a religious exemption was denied last September, prompting Byrne to file a lawsuit.
Byrne objects to the vaccines because they were tested using stem cell lines derived from an aborted foetus. Both the Vatican and the US bishops’ conference have encouraged people to get vaccinated, noting that any cooperation with the evil of abortion is very remote.
Last week, the city informed Byrne that her licence will remain in good standing until September, but that it could be revoked, so the lawsuit is likely to continue.
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