The bill that was passed is deliberately vague. Beyond that, it empowers private citizens to sue teachers in their personal capacities for any alleged transgression.
This is crazy. The status quo was that this question would be left up to school districts, with boards that are elected at the local level. If a teacher was not complying with school district policy, then the recourse was to fire the teacher.
The bill you're arguing in favor of hijacks control from local voters, overrides the expressed preferences of parents and local voters, and relies on civil lawsuits to enforce a state policy.
It absolutely is not the case educational material decisions are a purely local choice as the “status quo”.
Schools need to adhere to the Common Core subject areas, but what materials they use in teaching that was up to the district.
Recently, Florida's state-level Department of Education has been restricting the textbooks that school districts can use, but this is more of a reject list, than an accept list.
I also believe in constitutional republics where we have overriding laws which protect minorities — but that doesn’t apply in this case, as there isn’t an inherent right to discuss sex with other people’s young children.
So it would be acceptable for those same religious people to stop females from getting the same sort of education males receive? The damage done to others by such actions has to be taken into account.
I addressed that already.
> The damage done to others by such actions has to be taken into account.
This is something said but not done: look at how the male minority is treated in education, where the female majority speaks about equality while engaging in institutional sexism against the minority.
If Democrats want me to believe they are genuine in those principles, they should apply them consistently.
>I addressed that already.
Females are slightly more than 50% of the population.
There’s many mechanisms by which a school can be influenced and covering them all at a high level is difficult. In trying to set specific process controls, you merely encourage gamesmanship: “this wasn’t done by the board — we voted to outsource our decision to a NGO!”
A more effective mechanism is to define the standard (ie, don’t talk to kids below 9 about sex in schools) — but give enforcement powers when that standard is breached to the people actually impacted by that breach. This law gives people a tool to hold government accountable when it breaches the norms expected by the community, eg when they groom children.
Why would this constitute overreach?