Just this week, the Florida state legislature bravely stood up for the rights of parents to direct their children’s education.

The legislature passed the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, which does several things. The legislation:

  • Requires that school districts adopt procedures for notifying parents if there is a change in their student’s services or monitoring related to a student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being.
  • Ensures that all procedures adopted under the bill must reinforce the fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding the upbringing and control of their children.
  • Prohibits school districts from maintaining procedures that withhold information, or encourage students to withhold information, related to a student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being from parents.
  • Restricts discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity to only those that are age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate for students, while prohibiting a school district from encouraging discussions of these topics with children in kindergarten thru 3rd grade.
  • Creates a cause of action for parents that permits them to enforce their rights through declaratory and injunctive relief.

However, following passage of the bill through the legislature, the Walt Disney Company came out against the bill.

“I called Gov. DeSantis this morning to express our disappointment and concern that if the legislation becomes law, it could be used to unfairly target gay, lesbian, non-binary, and transgender kids and families,” said Disney CEO Bob Chapek.

Chapek also announced on Wednesday that Disney would be donating $5 million to LGBT-activist groups.

But after Chapek called Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the governor came out swinging against the company.

“When you have companies that have made a fortune off being family friendly and catering to families and young kids, they should understand that parents of young kids do not want this injected into their kid’s kindergarten classroom,” DeSantis said.

“You have companies, like at Disney, that are going to say and criticize parents’ rights, they’re going to criticize the fact that we don’t want transgenderism in kindergarten in first grade classrooms.

“If that’s the hill they’re going to die on, then how do they possibly explain lining their pockets with their relationship from the Communist Party of China? Because that’s what they do, and they make a fortune, and they don’t say a word about the really brutal practices that you see over there at the hands of the CCP.

“And so in Florida, our policies got to be based on the best interest of Florida citizens, not on the musing of woke corporations,” the governor added.

Governor DeSantis is expected to soon sign the bill into law.

 

Photo from Reuters.