Phoenix’s Fox News affiliate reports:
A bill proposed to the Arizona State Legislature seeks to ban ‘sexually explicit materials’ from school classrooms, but LGBTQ advocates believe the bill is taking it a step further by targeting their community.
“There is nothing more sacred than the innocence of a child,” said Rep. Jake Hoffman, the bill’s sponsor. The bill would ban the depiction of some things that are taught in health classes. Meanwhile, the bill’s definition of ‘sexual conduct’ has drawn controversy, as it defines acts of homosexuality as sexual conduct.
Democratic State Rep. Daniel Hernandez said the bill would revert Arizona to a time period under a law known as ‘no promo homo,’ where schools were prohibited from promoting a ‘homosexual lifestyle.’
The Tucson Sun reports:
“No one advocates teaching pornography,” Hernandez said. “What this bill does is once again try and erase the LGBTQ community from Arizona public schools under the guise of protecting children,” he said. “Children keep getting used as footballs for politics.”
He said Hoffman could accomplish his goal by simply prohibiting depictions of sexual conduct without making a specific reference to homosexuality. Hoffman, however, refused to remove the reference to homosexuality.
“I’m here, once again, having to stand up and say, ‘This is something that is wrong.’ Homosexuality is not inherently wrong.” Hernandez said.
Hoffman has been in the national news this week as he is one of Arizona’s fake electors. In 2020 he was banned by Twitter for running a paid teenage pro-Trump troll farm with Charlie Kirk.
I was told recently that no one cares about gays and lesbians, that we are now accepted by society. I have three more stories in my news feed about attempts to make the LGBTQ+ go away by banning books, ban teaching about gay people in history, or forbid mentioning gay role models. The fact is the Republicans / right wing loves culture wars as they enrage their base, upset people, and distracts from the real crimes being done by Republicans. Republicans have no polices to help people, so they need to distract people. The religious right is not going to stop trying to create a theocracy of their version of Christianity and they won’t stop trying to make everyone else live by their church doctrines. It is hard to accept that in 2022 I am still dealing with this bigotry and hate that I faced all my life.
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