https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/10/trump-judge-upholds-dont-say-gay-law-saying-bullying-fact-life/

This is crazy.  Another religious right wing judge pushing her views.  She dismissed the suit saying there was no harm because a reasonable person wouldn’t think that the law precludes talking about gay people and same sex families.  Just what the other trump judge said, but that is a lie.  The law is written to allow any religious bigot to burden the school with lawsuits.  Here are a couple examples from the article.   Hugs

Based on the law, the Florida Board of Education recently instituted a new rule that says any K-3 teacher who is found to have taught their students about LGBTQ issues can have their licenses suspended or revoked.  And in September, the Miami-Dade School Board voted against recognizing October as LGBTQ History Month over fears that it would violate the Don’t Say Gay law.

“It is simply a fact of life that many middle school students will face the criticism and harsh judgment of their peers,” wrote the judge.

By Molly Sprayregen Monday, October 24, 2022

Photo: Shutterstock

For the second time, a Trump-appointed judge has upheld the legality of Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law.

Lambda Legal, the Southern Legal Counsel, and the Southern Poverty Law Center joined together with a group of LGBTQ students and their families to advocate for a preliminary injunction on H.B. 1557 – which prohibits K-3 teachers from talking about sexual orientation and gender identity issues with their students. The lawsuit argued that the law restricts free speech and encourages bullying.

But U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger dismissed their request.

“Plaintiffs have not directed this Court to any fact that would lead a reasonable person to believe that the law prohibits students from discussing their families and vacations at school or even on a school assignment,” Berger reportedly wrote in the decision, “or that it would prohibit a parent from attending a school function in a ‘pride’ t-shirt or generally discussing their family structure in front of other people.”

Lambda Legal staff attorney Kell Olson called Berger’s decision “wrong on the law and disrespectful to LGBTQ+ families and students.”

“H.B. 1557 suppresses wholesale the speech and identities of LGBTQ+ students and their families. It sends a message of shame and stigma that has no place in schools and puts LGBTQ+ students and families at risk,” Olson continued.

“The students and families at the heart of this case have experienced more bullying in the months since the law went into effect than ever before in their lives, but the court dismissed their experiences of bullying as ‘a fact of life.’ The court’s decision defies decades of precedent establishing schools’ constitutional obligations to protect student speech, and to protect students from targeted bullying and harassment based on who they are.”

Berger acknowledged some of the plaintiff’s bullying worries but said that “it is simply a fact of life that many middle school students will face the criticism and harsh judgment of their peers.”

“Indeed, middle school children bully and belittle their classmates for a whole host of reasons,” Berger continued, “all of which are unacceptable, and many of which have nothing to do with a classmate’s gender identity.”

A challenge to the Don’t Say Gay law was dismissed by another Trump-nominated judge, Allen Cothrel Winsor, in early October.

The Don’t Say Gay law, which went into effect on July 1, continues to make its mark on Florida schools.

Based on the law, the Florida Board of Education recently instituted a new rule that says any K-3 teacher who is found to have taught their students about LGBTQ issues can have their licenses suspended or revoked.

And in September, the Miami-Dade School Board voted against recognizing October as LGBTQ History Month over fears that it would violate the Don’t Say Gay law.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/08/trump-appointed-judge-dismisses-challenge-to-floridas-dont-say-gay-law-a-second-time/

It is clear she supports the law.  In the article, a man chaperoning kids felt he couldn’t mention his husband or their family as others were doing.  That is the point of the law, to make the LGBTQIA disappear from society.  Not mentioned, not heard about, don’t exist.  Make it a weird fringe thing, instead of a large segment of the population.  I don’t know how we get around the legal road blocks that the maga right has installed.  Think of it, this judge says students, parents of students, and their legal representatives don’t have standing, yet the religious liberty legal groups can create a fictional business that doesn’t even exist and the court rules yes Christians have a pass to discriminate.  What next, Christians suing to not serve black people?  What about Jewish people.  Yet if someone tried not to serve Christians their heads would explode and that would be illegal.   Please note the related story of a trump appointed judge saying that gay kids shouldn’t be protected from bullying.  “It is simply a fact of life that many middle school students will face the criticism and harsh judgment of their peers,” wrote the judge.  Well that was changing just as acceptance of people of color stopped a lot of the tolerated bullying of black children, so the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ kids with anti-bullying programs was working also.  Those programs were stopping the bullying and gay kids felt accepted and included at school.  That is what the republicans were desperate to stop.  That what these laws are doing.   Hugs

U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger ruled that most of the plaintiffs lacked standing and accused them of “legal posturing.”

By John Russell Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Photo: Shutterstock

A Trump-appointed judge has dismissed a challenge to Florida’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law for the second time.  

Last week, U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger rejected a lawsuit brought by Lambda Legal, the Southern Legal Counsel, and the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of a group of LGBTQ+ students, parents, and a nonprofit group seeking a preliminary injunction against the state’s Parental Rights in Education Act, also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

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Trump judge upholds Don’t Say Gay law because bullying is “a fact of life”

“It is simply a fact of life that many middle school students will face the criticism and harsh judgment of their peers,” wrote the judge.

The legislation, signed into law last year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), bans instruction on topics related to sexual orientation and gender identity in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade and requires discussion of those topics to be “age appropriate” in higher grades.

This is the second time Berger has dismissed this case. Last October, she rejected a previous version of the lawsuit, giving plaintiffs until November 3 to file an updated version. (Another Trump-appointed judge, Allen Cothrel Winsor, dismissed a separate challenge to the law earlier this year.) As Orlando Weekly reported, the revised version of the lawsuit argued that the law violates the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights by chilling speech related to sexual orientation and gender identity, while also raising equal protection and due process arguments.

“The impact of the law has been immediate and severe,” the revised version stated. “Defendant school boards and their agents have already begun implementing significant changes under the law. They have instructed teachers to review hundreds of books that acknowledge LGBTQ+ people and families and have eliminated vital support systems for LGBTQ+ students, including guidance and training that combat bullying and violence.”

In her 37-page ruling, issued last Wednesday, Berger wrote that all but two of the plaintiffs lacked standing. She also rejected the argument that the law forced one parent, David Dinan, to censor himself while chaperoning a school field trip “because he was concerned that mention or discussion of his husband or family could have been considered classroom instruction by a third party.”

“While Dinan felt his speech was chilled when he was acting as a chaperone, plaintiffs still fail to offer any argument as to how a reasonable person would have objectively believed that mentioning his same-sex spouse while acting as a chaperone would constitute instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity,” Berger wrote.

While the law does not explicitly ban the mention of LGBTQ+ people in schools, the Florida Department of Education has not yet released official guidance on how the law should be applied. At the same time, the law allows parents to sue school districts if they feel the law has been violated. Critics of the law say that it caters to particularly litigious parents who will sue school districts over their own interpretations of its provisions, forcing schools to foot the bill for frivolous lawsuits and, thus, chilling any mention of LGBTQ+ people out of an abundance of caution.

Berger also wrote that the plaintiffs “continue to include numerous allegations that appear to be wholly immaterial.”

“Even if such allegations are not immaterial,” she wrote, “the complaint is not the proper place for legal argument or posturing.”