Disney Promises To Get Florida’s Anti-Grooming Bill Repealed Or Struck Down By The Courts

John F. Trent |

Mar 28, 2022

The Walt Disney Company issued a statement promising to do everything in their power to get Florida’s HB 1557 also known as the Parental Rights in Education Act that was recently signed into law repealed or struck down by the courts.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill earlier today posting to Twitter, “Today, I signed HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education Act, into law.”

He added, “It ensures parents can send their kids to kindergarten without gender ideology being injected into instruction and they will be notified and have the right to decline healthcare services offered at schools.”

Today, I signed HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education Act, into law.

It ensures parents can send their kids to kindergarten without gender ideology being injected into instruction and they will be notified and have the right to decline healthcare services offered at schools. pic.twitter.com/OLnW2GLrJl

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 28, 2022

Before signing the bill into law, DeSantis gave a speech that he began, “As many of you know, I think the last couple of years have really revealed to parents that they are being ignored, increasingly, across our country when it comes to their kids’ education.”

“We have seen curriculum embedded for very, very young children, classroom materials about sexuality and woke gender ideology,” he continued. “We’ve seen libraries that have clearly inappropriate pornographic materials for very young kids.”

“And we’ve seen services that were given to students without the consent or even knowledge of their parents across the country and unfortunately that’s happened here in the state of Florida. You’re going to hear from some parents where that has happened,” he added.

DeSantis went on, “Now in Florida we found at least six school districts that had policies to cut parents out of decisions regarding their child’s well-being and to shield them from knowing about various forms of mental health services.”

He then listed off six counties: Broward, Hillsboro, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Sarasota, and Volusia. Aside from these six counties, DeSantis also detailed, “Martin County also had a gender transition plan that can be implemented without the parents’ consent.”

DeSantis continued, “In Leon County, Florida a school excluded parents from conversations about a student’s ‘gender transition,’ a situation for which the district superintendent has apologized for and admit that should never have occurred.”

DeSantis then listed off a number of other places where schools are attempting to keep parents out of decisions relating to their children.

He relayed, “It’s not just limited to Florida. In fact, it’s probably a lot worse in many other parts of the country. In Idaho a counselor was working with a 10-year-old student to help the student transition to a different gender without informing the child’s parents.”

“In California, a mother has filed a legal alleging two middle school teachers manipulated her child’s identity then called the meeting to inform her, the parent, that the student is transgender. And in California, a high school student recently committed suicide after an LA high school gave her gendering transitioning hormones rather than treat her underlying depression,” he stated.

“We’ve also found cases where school districts and individual schools took it upon themselves to decide it’s okay to sexualize the education of very young children,” he noted.

“We’ve actually have different things, and this is not something that I thought was something that was going to be around. So this is something that this is in Florida and other places’ school for very young kids: the Genderbread Man,” DeSantis said while holding up a diagram.

“This is trying to sow doubt about kids, about their gender identity. It’s trying to say that they can be whatever they want to be,” he explained the diagram. “This is inappropriate for kindergartners and first graders and second graders. Parents do not want this going on in their schools.”

DeSantis then pulled out another board, showing a single panel comic. It reads, “When I was born, my Mom and Dad said, ‘It’s a girl.’ When I looked in the mirror, I saw a girl. Kind of. But because I’m transgender, I wanted to see a boy.”

“This is something that you’re putting into classroom curriculum for 5-year-old, 6-year-old, 7-year-old kids. And again, that is nothing something that’s appropriate for any place, but certainly in the state of Florida,” he declared.

DeSantis then asked, “And shouldn’t parents know if that is something that’s in the curriculum? They should be able to have a voice in that.”

DeSantis continued, “This is not just in Florida. And again, many other states it’s even more aggressive. In Connecticut, kindergarten students are taught about being transgender as part of ‘social justice’ standards.”

“In Denver, kindergarteners were subject to ‘gender sensitivity training’ and in Illinois they require sex education beginning in kindergarten,” DeSantis elaborated.

He then detailed, “This is part of a national trend to cut parents out of their child’s education. In Florida, we not only know that parents have a right to be involved, we insist that parents have a right to be involved.”

DeSantis then explained, “We’ve already taken great steps. Last year I signed the Parents Bill of Rights in the state of Florida, which was really something that was significant. Last week we signed curriculum transparency legislation so that parents have a right to access the curriculum that’s in their kids schools as well as understand what type of books are in school libraries. And today, we will sign HB 1557, the Parents Rights in Education Bill.”

DeSantis then outlined the bill, “The bill takes three main steps. First, the bill prohibits classroom instruction about sexuality or things like transgender in K-3 classrooms. And after third grade those curriculums need to be age appropriate.”

“Second, the bill ensures that at the beginning of every school year parents will be notified about healthcare services offered at the school with the right to decline any service offered,” he said.

Next, he said, “And finally, this bill ensures that whenever a questionnaire or health screening is given to our young students, parents receive it first and give permission for the school to give it to their child.”

DeSantis then addressed the coverage of the bill, “There’s been a lot of discussions about this particular piece of legislation. You’ve seen a lot of sloganeering and fake narratives by leftist politicians, by activists, by corporate media, and you still see it even today after a lot of this stuff has been debunked.”

“Now, it’s true many of the people who whip this up have never actually read the bill, they haven’t taken the time to do that, they would rather further narratives,” DeSantis argued. “But I must tell you, these leftist politicians, corporate media outlets, some of these activist groups, they actually have read the bill. And they’re sloganeering because they don’t want to admit that they support a lot of the things that we’re providing protections against.”

“For example, they support sexualizing kids in kindergarten,” DeSantis professed. “They support injecting woke gender ideology into second grade classrooms. They support enabling school to ‘transition’ students to a ‘different gender’ without the knowledge of the parents much less without the parents’ consent.”

“So what they are doing with these slogans and these narratives is they are trying to camouflage their true intentions,” he explained. “They know in every single poll that’s been done that actually reads the language in the bill will find overwhelmingly Americans oppose injecting this type of material into the classroom of young kids. Americans support the right of parents to be informed and to be able to withhold consent over certain types of medical treatments in school.”

“They know that, so that’s why they’re resorting to some of the narratives, and it hasn’t worked. Let’s just be clear. It’s not just all of them have not read the bill. Many have not. Many have and many of them want to see this type of stuff in our school. So be very, very careful when you see that,” he cautioned.

“Someone told me that there’s even people in Hollywood that are opposed to providing protections for parents and enforcing parents rights. The one thing I’ll say about that is if the people who held up degenerates like Harvey Weinstein up as exemplars and as heroes and as all that if those are the types of people that are opposing us on parents’ rights, I wear that like a badge of honor,” DeSantis proclaimed.

“And so we will continue to recognize that in the state of Florida, parents have a fundamental role in the education, healthcare, and wellbeing of their children. We will not move from that,” he asserted. “I don’t care what corporate media outlets say. I don’t care what Hollywood says. I don’t care what big corporations say. Here I stand. I’m not backing down.”

“We will make sure that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination,” he concluded.

After the bill was signed into law, The Walt Disney Company issued a statement via Twitter.

It reads, “Florida’s HB 1557, also known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, should never have passed and should never have been signed into law. Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that.”

“We are dedicated to standing up for the rights and safety of LGBTQ+ members of the Disney family, as well as the LGBTQ+ community in Florida and across the country.”