Board votes 5-3 against resolution along partisan lines
The Miami-Dade School Board meeting Wednesday was painful. It was ugly. And so sad.
Traumatizing might be an apt description for many people there.
It was eight hours or so worth of a debate over a proclamation of October as LGBTQ History Month, a debate that never should have been, between people who only want to be recognized and given a right to exist in this 2023 world and those who would deny them that based on religion or “family values” — apparently meant for only some families — or some neanderthal opinion that a banner celebrating the achievements of gay Americans could turn their kids gay.
The concept was rejected along partisan lines.
It got very aggressive. People used words like grooming, pedophile, pervert, indoctrination, communism. And those were the God-fearing religious people. They compared a Pride month to Sodom and Gomorrah.
There was some very passionate arguments made on both sides. Clueless parents talked and yelled about having the right to tell their children (or not) about homosexuality. Many said the month would confuse kids about their own sexuality. A few outright said it was a way to recruit. Gay students talked about being bullied and having someone at a school save their lives.
Among those who spoke on behalf of the designation were State Rep. Joe Geller, Miami Beach Commissoner Alex Fernandez and former North Miami Councilman Scott Galvin, Executive Director of Safe Schools South Florida, a non-profit focusing on providing safe space for LGBTQ youth.
If the decision had been based on who had the better argument, the result might have been different. But this was a partisan, woke wars vote.
Read related: Miami-Dade School Board gets extreme makeover with two hard right newbies
The irony of the National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month banner across the dais and the Proud Boys harassing the LGBTQ speakers and allies out front was not lost on most of the kids. Get it? Proud boys?
Less than 48 hours after their fearless leader is sentenced to 22 years for his part in the Jan. 6 insurrection, this exclusively male, far-right neo-fascist militant organization that promotes and engages in political violence felt the need to intimidate gay teens.
One skinny girl in glasses, Madeline something from Miami Beach, shook as she failed to hold back tearful gasps of air. She couldn’t believe the “homophobic rhetoric” she was hearing.
“People here told me how my very being is biologically unnatural,” she said as others in the LGBTQ community and School Board Member Lucia Baez-Geller, who sponsored the resolution to make October LGBTQ+ History Month, ran to stand by her. The girl made Ladra cry.
Baez-Geller, who won’t seek re-election next year, also sponsored the Pride Month resolutions in 2021, which passed almost unanimously, and last year, which failed after she was the sole yes vote. The difference: The culture wars, Baez-Geller said. Board members blamed the new Parental Rights In Education law (read: Don’t Say Gay) that Gov. Ron DeSantis so proudly passed as part of his far right agenda.
Read related: School Board rejects LGBTQ+ History Month as casualty of ‘Don’t Say Gay’
But this year, the school board attorney said the resolution was in line with the law and it specifically stated that it did not include any curriculum or instructional materials.
“We just sat here and listened for eight hours that this is illegal. It is not,” Baez-Geller said. “The way that it is written, makes it not. It is symbolic. It is non binding. And it is asking is to show support to students and I do not think that is too much to ask in this day and age.”
She said the opposition was “part of a bigger picture. It’s a part of an anti LGBTQ agenda in Tallahassee.
“You have heard all the things said about me, a 20-year educator… because of that misinformation is causing people to call me a groomer, pedophile and pervert.”
Critics didn’t believe it, saying that it would be hard to keep the “celebration” out of the classroom. Many board members didn’t believe it either, saying that is why they were voting against it again, because it ran afoul of the law.
Guess they’re going to have to fire their general counsel if his advice is so useless.
But that’s not why they really voted against it close to 1 a.m. Thursday morning.
“This was never a topic wen I was growing up in schools,” said School Board Member Robert Alonso.
“We talk about bullying. I was bullied as a child. I was overweight and they called me ‘Fat boy.’ But my parents didn’t come to the schools to ask for a ‘Fat boy’ day of recognition at school,” Alonso said. “My parents came and said, ‘Son, life is cruel. You will face adversity.
“This is about sexual preference. Do we celebrate or dedicate another month or day to any other sexual preference? It’s not legal nor is it our place as the third largest school district in the country to be discussing these topics.”
Two of the school board members who voted against it, Alonso and Monica Colucci, were hand-picked for their respective elections by DeSantis and two others, Mary Blanco and Dan Espino, were appointed by him. Chairwoman Mari Tere Rojas, the Republican sister-in-law of Congressman Carlos Gimenez, also voted against it. The three members who voted in favor of the resolution were Baez Geller, Luisa Santos and Dorothy Bendross Mindingall.
LGBTQ History Month debate back at Miami-Dade School Board with vitriol added by Ladra on
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I’m so glad parents were present, and that conservative GenXers were not intimated by the bully LGBTQ community pressing for publicly funded schools to be celebrating a sexual orientation. Did anyone propose to have a Heterosexual Month? A Patriotic Month? A Religious Month? Of course not, democrats of today only think of racism and sexual preferences, and nothing else matters to them. Homosexuality has existed since the beginning of time, and homosexuals have survived and thrive without any problems. There have always been bullies against obese kids, poor kids, gay kids, weak kids. That’s part of growing up and growing a back bone to help you grow in a society that is not always nice, inclusive or fair. 2023 was saved by the bell at 1 am!!! Thank you God!
This is a matter of logic; Sexualizing children is wrong. It is impossible to celebrate LGBTQ individuals, events, or issues without addressing sexuality. Therefore, including LGBTQ history into an elementary school curriculum is wrong. Free societies should always protect parental rights. Only parents have the right to decide when and how to address issues of sexuality with their children. Only parents have the right to decide on the sexual mores with which to educate their children.
We are quickly becoming an intolerant and authoritarian society, and the public schools have become the bloody battleground, as Ladra sadly points out.
I have stated before on this platform that the ONLY way to bring the temperature down in our debates about how schools should be run, is to dismantle completely the bankrupt public school system and to replace it with a completely private school system.
Do not get blinded by “vouchers”, which are really a way for politicians to maintain control of the budget and the curricula while providing subsidies to religious schools.
It’s Funny to Se The Politicians in favor of this Declaration , Must have Been in the Closet or About to come Out ! They Got LBGTQI+ DONATIONS > ” COINSIDENCE “
Alonso has a point, but fairness requires even application so we do not dedicate any months, weeks, or days to any celebrations. No more holiday decorations, no more fundraisers, and no more special months/weeks/days.
You want to celebrate Jewish holidays, then go to a Jewish school; you want to celebrate Christmas, Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day and Valentine’s Day, then go to a goy school; you want to celebrate Spanish Heritage Month, then go to Belen/Columbus/Lourdes. That is what Alonso is basically saying, but he would never, ever actually advocate for that because parents would lose it when they can’t get pictures of their kids singing “El Burrito Sabanero” or the token Jewish song (“I Have a Little Dreidel,” anyone?) at the Kindergarten Christmas show. Then he’d be out of office and back at his tech business continuing to grift off the government voucher and public school funding teats. Instead he and his ilk (including my esteemed board member, Monica Colucci) pick on the LGBTQ community because it is easy and popular with the more bigoted segments of our community.
But if you’re giving a platform to one group by designating a time period as “[Fill In The Blank] Month/Week/Day,” then be fair about it. Otherwise don’t do it at all because there aren’t enough days/weeks/months, and no one deserves to be marginalized, especially by politicians and district bureaucrats that spend so much time bullshitting us about how much they “care about the children.”
An earlier post called these people “freaking cowards.” They’re worse: they’re fucking bastards and they are failing our kids, our schools and our society.
This show of force by conservative school board officials is typical of fascist and communist regimes. Mr. Alonso’s parents were wrong not to defend him as a bullied child, and it is unfortunate his miserable stand not to defend other children who can be in his position today
If they want to pretend that people like me (gay) don’t exist, that’s fine. Can they also pretend that the school taxes I pay don’t exist and refund them to me?
The Miami-Dade School Board is a disappointment on so many levels. Their worst offense is spending $8 Billion of the taxpayers money and NOT educating students. There are too many over paid administrators and NOT enough good teachers. And the School Superintendent lives in another County and he barely shows up in Miami-Dade County.
Cowards–they are freaking cowards.