Pennsylvania lawmakers move to ban teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation to young children
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Two state Senators from Lancaster County say Pennsylvania needs a law like Florida's – one that bans the teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation to young children.
It's likely to be as controversial here as it was in Florida.
State Sen. Ryan Aument and his colleague Scott Martin, both Lancaster County Republicans, said they are hearing from concerned parents everywhere.
"Families all across Pennsylvania who are very concerned about conversations that are taking place in Pennsylvania schools of a highly sensitive nature with respect to sexual orientation and gender identity at a very early age," Aument told KDKA political editor Jon Delano on Friday.
Aument said they will soon introduce their bill to prohibit the classroom teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity from Pre-K through fifth grade.
"Parents are very concerned these conversations are happening as part of classroom instruction and are happening without their knowledge and without their permission," Aument said.
While these subjects can be taught in the upper grades in an age-appropriate manner as is required for sex education, schools must keep parents informed of the curriculum and allow them to opt their children out.
Aument added that this is not a "Don't Say Gay" bill because even in the early grades, students can say gay and ask questions.
"We don't limit, we don't prohibit organic conversations. We don't prohibit certainly teachers responding to questions," Aument said.
"What this looks like it's going to do and what similar legislation has done in other states is chill conversation in the classroom about sexual orientation, gender identity," state Sen. Lindsey Williams, a West View Democrat, said.
Williams, the senior Democrat on the Senate Education Committee, is skeptical. She worries about its impact on gay and transgender students.
"To make students who are already feeling marginalized in our schools, in our communities, to make that worse is a really strong possibility," Williams said.
Williams thinks this Republican bill is election-year politics.
Senator Aument told KDKA-TV that this bill is likely to move quickly through the Republican-controlled Senate, perhaps passing before the Fourth of July. But it's not likely to become law under Governor Tom Wolf, who once called the similar Florida law "a disgraceful attempt to erase LGBTQ youth."