Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP
www.kaplanhecker.com
1. Florida House Bill 1557 (widely known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law) is an unlawful attempt to stigmatize, silence, and erase LGBTQ people in Florida’s public schools. It seeks to do so by imposing a sweeping, vague ban covering any instruction on “sexual orientation and gender identity,” and by constructing a diffuse enforcement scheme designed to maximize the chilling effect of this prohibition.
2. Through H.B. 1557, Florida would deny to an entire generation that LGBTQ people exist and have equal dignity. This effort to control young minds through state censorship—and to demean LGBTQ lives by denying their reality—is a grave abuse of power. The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that LGBTQ people and families are at home in our constitutional order. The State of Florida has no right to declare them outcasts, or to treat their allies as outlaws, by punishing schools where someone dares to affirm their identity and dignity.
3. H.B. 1557 piles one violation on top of another. It offends principles of free speech and equal protection by seeking to censor discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity that recognize and respect LGBTQ people and their families. It offends due process by using broad and vague terms to define its prohibitions—thus inviting discriminatory enforcement and magnifying its chilling effect on speech. And it arises from discriminatory purposes and outdated sex-based stereotypes that offend deeply rooted constitutional and statutory requirements.
4. To start, the law is clearly the product of animus towards Florida’s LGBTQ community. The bill’s sponsor in the Senate has stated that the law is meant to prohibit discussion of sexual orientations and gender identities that do not comport with Florida’s supposed “core belief systems and values.” He has also stated that the bill is intended to prevent students “coming out in school” to their peers from being treated as “celebrities.” The premise of these statements is fear that LGBTQ students might live their true identities in school and be met with acceptance rather than state-sanctioned hostility targeting their protected characteristics.