Do not Say Homosexual invoice launched in Georgia Senate

A Georgia Senator has introduced a bill that draws comparisons to Florida’s highly controversial “Don’t Say Gay” legislation.

Driving the news: Senate Bill 613, dropped Tuesday by Senator Carden Summers, would ban discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation in private school classrooms for the elementary grade.

• It would also prohibit teaching that one race or sex is superior to another; that a person should be discriminated against because of their race or ethnicity; and that slavery is the “true founding” of the United States

The bill applies to private schools funded through the Georgia GOAL scholarship program.

Game Status: The legislation includes key components from SB 377 that would prohibit the teaching of “divisive concepts” in public school classrooms.

• Summers’ legislation is unlikely to pass the Senate in time for Tuesday, or Crossover Day, when all legislation introduced during that session must pass a chamber before having a chance to become law.

What you say: Summers, a Republican from Cordele, tells Axios he introduced the bill as a “conversation starter” and because parents also need to know what private schools are teaching their children.

• “You can’t use the woke philosophy while using taxpayer dollars,” he says.

The other side: Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, tells Axios that the bill is similar to legislation passed by the Florida legislature and is an attack on diversity and inclusion efforts in schools.

• Graham says about a third of Georgia’s same-sex couples are raising children and almost everyone in the state has an LGBTQ family member, so the bill would have a chilling effect on children wanting to talk about their families in schools.
• “It’s a throwback to decades of stigma that existed in the past,” he said of this and Florida’s legislation. “It’s a concerted effort to turn back the clock and try to eliminate LGBTQ people from public life.”

Remarkable: Another bill targeting LGBTQ youth is also making its way through the General Assembly.

• SB 435, currently under consideration in the House of Representatives, requires students to play on teams that match their birth-assigned gender, meaning transgender students are not allowed to play on teams that match their gender identity.