Florida's Legislature has passed a bill that forbids sexual instruction to children pre-K through third grade such as instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity.  Governor DeSantis said it is "entirely inappropriate" for teachers to be having conversations with students about gender identity, including picking their gender when they are older.

Opponents of this bill have criticized it by saying it marginalizes LGBT people.  Amit Paley, CEO and executive director of The Trevor Project, said, "Lawmakers should be supporting LGBTQ students and their families and encouraging schools to be inclusive, not pitting parents against teachers and erasing the LGBTQ community from public education."  Activists say this law implies that students should be ashamed of their sexual orientation and suppress it.

Governor DeSantis is correct.

DeSantis speaks in favor of the bill (YouTube screen grab).

Sexual orientation instruction is completely improper.  This type of instruction is not about the birds and the bees.  Instead, children are taught you can be anything you want to be.  Therefore, you can change from a boy to a girl and vice versa, that there are more than two genders, that you can be addressed any way you desire, and so on.  This instruction can and will psychologically harm children who are just beginning to grasp the facts of reality and now are getting the message that reality not only is unstable, but that they can change it at a whim.

The criticism against the bill is unconvincing.  How can a five-year-old child feel shame over his sexual orientation when he is too young to have a strong sexual attraction for someone he loves?  He isn't even close to puberty!  In addition, the statement that this law marginalizes LGBT people is a weak argument.  Who is being marginalized?  It can't be the children who are not developed enough physiologically to really understand the topic.  Apparently, it must be the "feelings" of those in the LGBT community. 

Being marginalized happens to almost everyone at some time in his life for various reasons such as religion, disagreements, behavior issues, and philosophical positions, to name a few.  Part of growing up is learning how to deal with it.  Mature people do not whine and demand that the rest of the world revolve around them.  They learn how to navigate the world through the use of reason. 

Paley thinks LGBT people are "erased" because they aren't allowed to talk about their sexuality with young children who have no knowledge of sex or of its role in human life.  Since when are teachers and other instructors allowed to talk to children about their sex lives?  When I was growing up, adults who did that were considered predators.

The act of interacting with a child with the objective of sexual abuse is called grooming.  Children have become targets because many people in the LGBT movement define themselves by their sexual orientation.  Rather than their sexuality being a part of their identity, it is their complete identity, and they feel insecure about it.  Instead of getting help, they feel obsessed with gaining approval, and when approval is not given, they go after children and try to sexualize them.  This behavior is sexual abuse.

Some interesting observations about grooming children were made on Sunny Lohmann's podcast on March 10, 2022.  Sunny said everyone she knows who is confused about his sexuality is messed up, is unhappy, is taking anti-depression drugs, and has low self-confidence.  Yet these are the people who are lecturing the rest of us on how we should think and live.  These are the people who are trying to indoctrinate children with the view that anything goes in sexuality, which is not healthy.

Sunny's friend, Doug, agreed and explained the thought process and motivation of child indoctrinators who hold no standards for proper behavior.  They want children to be as messed up as they are so they can be accepted:  

Anything goes, anything I want to do is okay, cause I'm doing it. I'm gonna do what I want to do and who are you to tell me otherwise? So my behavior and everything I do is okay.  And I want to feel okay about all this stuff I'm doing, even if it's self-destructive. ... I have to inculcate generations of children into having no standards and no values and that anything goes so that I can feel good about myself.  I can feel good about my own deviancy now because everyone acknowledges that there are no standards.  So you can't judge me now.

Sunny pointed out that if a law needs to be passed in order for teachers to refrain from sexualizing children, we are in big trouble.  We need a cultural revolution, and all those teachers need to be fired.  "We can't be passive or meek about fighting this."  To that, Doug replied, "Culturally ostracize [them] and return values and standards to human relations." 

Sunny and Doug are exactly right.  We can't sit idly by, hoping this malevolency will somehow go away.  Now is the time to speak up.  Let the child-abusers know that child abuse is evil.  As Sunny said, "I have compassion for messed up people, but not when they dictate to me how I should live or think, and I'm not going to let them teach my kids.  And if I have to get in their faces and tell them they are messed up in order to achieve that, I will.  They are not nice to us, and we need to stop being nice to them.  It is time we get tough. We need to say to them, 'Don't impose your misery on innocent little kids.'"

Charlotte Cushman is a Montessori educator who taught for over 40 years and co-owned and operated two Montessori schools.  She authored Montessori: Why It Matters for Your Child's Success and Happiness, Effective Discipline the Montessori Way, and Your Life Belongs to You.  She has been involved in the study of Ayn Rand's philosophy since 1970.  Her website is Cushmanbooks.com.