Category: Education

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Governor DeSantis thinks that Florida teachers are in the business of sexual indoctrination. It isn’t happening but it’s scaring a lot of people needlessly which is precisely what DeSantis wants.

The most important thing to remember is that it isn’t happening. But instead of saying this over and over again, the people who oppose this law are saying “Don’t Say Gay.” But what is meant here is that a teacher might have to explain to a 2nd grader why Johnny has two mommies. What I fear some parents are thinking instead is why on earth do teachers need to say gay to 2nd graders. Let me repeat yet again, no one is explaining the joys of gay sex to 2nd Graders, or any sex, for that matter. It is a divisive political tool and nothing more. The law is not giving children any extra protection from being indoctrinated because no one is trying to indoctrinate them.

If there was indoctrination going on, and I can’t say this often enough — there isn’t, it would fail miserably. If your child identifies as a heterosexual, then no amount of indoctrination will change that. None. Zero. Nada. It will not happen.

The reason I know that is, as a gay man, I went through years of heterosexual indoctrination and still turned out gay. Even though the whole social structure I grew up in supports heterosexual relationships, even though the art I saw idealized heterosexual love, even though the religion I grew up only recognized heterosexual marriage, despite the fact the almost everyone I knew was heterosexual and I desperately wanted to heterosexual, I turned out gay.

There was also a strong social stigma against being gay. I grew up with a very real fear, unfounded thankfully, that every person I know and loved could turn against me if the learned I was gay. I could be fired from jobs for being gay. I could be arrested for being gay. Straight boys could get away with beating up a gays by saying the gay guy made a pass at him. Or the gay guy wouldn’t press charges because he somehow felt he deserved it. Still, despite all of the social support for heterosexuality and all the social pressure against being gay, I turned out gay.

You can’t make someone gay. Overbearing mothers don’t make you gay nor does distant fathers nor does playing with dolls or being a tomboy or any of a million different explanations. Right now, the only explanation, and I hate to quote Lady Gaga here, is that people are born that way and thus unable to change no matter how hard you try. This would also mean that heterosexuals are born that way as well. No amount of indoctrination is going to change someone’s sexual identity.

For DeSantis to claim that the Florida schools have been turned into sexual indoctrination centers is more than a little disingenuous. He is using gays, a group that doesn’t vote for him and is proportionately a small part of the Florida electorate, as a straw man. He wants to frighten parents into thinking that Florida teachers are trying to make their children gay or transgender.

I would ask him what the Florida teachers are actually doing to indoctrinate children.

Are they telling heterosexual children they are going to Hell just because they are heterosexual?

Are they forcing conversion therapy on heterosexual children? Which is, by the way, still legal in Florida and he supports. Parents can force their children to undergo this therapy against the wishes of the child. I am curious does this mean it would be OK for a parent to use conversion therapy on their heterosexual child to make them gay? If a parent can dictate their child’s preferred sexual identification, why not?

Are they forcing heterosexual children to take medication that makes them vomit when they see heterosexual pornography so that the child will learn to hate heterosexual sex? Or do they use electric shock therapy to stop children from being aroused by heterosexual sex?

Do they punish boys who like to play with trucks? What about girls who like to play with dolls?

If DeSantis really wanted to stop the indoctrination of children’s sexual identity, he might ponder making conversion therapy illegal and let the Florida teachers get back to their actual jobs of teaching reading, writing and arithmetic.

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I never much liked school. For the longest time, I thought my parents hated me for sending me there every day.  I thought why on earth would anybody go to such a terrible boring place. I was an early advocate of do what you have a passion for, and, let me tell you, I had very little passion for school, so I put very little effort into it.  If I wasn’t interested in the subject I did the absolute maximum I needed to do to get a C.  Which was fine during the mid-1960’s, when I was growing up, C’s meant what C’s were supposed to mean, it meant you were average.  I was fine when they appeared on my report card, and, more importantly, so were my parents. 

My journey to being a C student really got going in the second grade.  This was when I took the Iowa Basics which, at that time, tested a child’s intelligence. The Iowa Basics were taken seriously.  You were given a questions book, an answer sheet, a strict time requirement a proctor to make sure you followed all the rules. The answer sheet was a page of unfilled ovals which students were to give their answers on by filling in the appropriate oval with a number 2 pencil. The proctor emphasized the importance of the number 2 pencil mark and also the need to stay within the boundaries of the oval.  If you failed these two simple instructions, your answers would be invalid, you would screw up the whole test and be considered a dim wit for the rest of your life and, since I went to Catholic schools, you would probably end up in Hell. 

Teachers could be blunt in my day.  If they thought you were stupid, they told you so. If you complained to your parents that your teacher called you stupid, your parents called you stupid too.  The teachers and the parents always agreed when the stupidity of the child was under discussion.  So, if the teacher thought you were going to Hell, it was her duty to let you know so that, perchance, you took her guidance seriously, you could at least make it to purgatory instead of rotting in Hell for eternity. The good old days. 

Anyway, I ran into a problem with my Iowa Basic test before I even had a chance to open the questions book. The answer sheet didn’t have enough ovals for my very long name – Thomas Bartholomew Fitzpatrick. Instead of notifying the test proctor of my dilemma, I fumbled around trying to figure out where I made my mistake. That this was the design of the test never occurred to me. So, while other kids were filling out the appropriate oval with their more manageably sized names, I was desperately trying to jam my full name onto the answer sheet.

Things came to a head when the proctor tried to start the test.  She asked if everyone had completed putting their name on the answer sheet and I had to admit I was struggling.  Of course, she became irritated with me for not bringing this to her attention earlier. I had ample time to complain and now I was going to delay the start of the test for everyone. How thoughtless of me. However, I am happy to report that she was equally stumped on how to proceed with getting my full name on the answer sheet.  She needed to call the principal who didn’t know what to do either but she had the good sense to realize that there was no good reason to hold up the test. She told the proctor to start the test and she would figure out what to do about the name later.   

So, there I was taking the test that would determine the course of my entire life. I was nervous wreck already. Full of questions and worries.  Why did my parents give me such ridiculously long name, didn’t they know about the ovals on the Iowa Basics?  Furthermore, because of my ridiculously long name, both the test proctor and the principal were angry with me.  The proctor particularly irritated because she looked foolish in front of the principal and took every opportunity to glare at me as if I was trying to subvert the Iowa Basic test she was proctoring thus dooming all these other children’s lives as they would be marked for life as dim wits along with me. And, finally, my fellow students, not knowing how long my name was so not understanding my dilemma, looked at me like I was some kind of idiot. How hard could it be to fill out an oval with a number 2 pencil.  To say I was nervous was an understatement, I was a wreck as I tried to pull myself together while under the watchful eye of every living soul in the room.  

The terrible pressure of that moment is the only explanation I have for my completely average score. Because, I am certain, if I hadn’t been so discombobulated by the stress of that day, I would have scored much higher. Instead, I scored smack dab in the middle. 50 percent of the American children scored above me, 49 percent scored below me. The good news, at least for me, my parents took the Iowa Basics seriously. If the Iowa Basics determined I was average, I was average. No reason to get their hopes up for Harvard and the Presidency for this child. From this point on, their only expectations of me from that point on was C student.

I can’t tell you how liberating it was to be a C student.  I was left alone to determine my fate. And, with such low expectations, all I had to do was find a job, pay my bills and not be a burden to society.  I am happy to say, with very little exertion on my part, I have met those expectations and had an awfully good time doing it. Just think, if in the second grade I had aced the Iowa Basics, I would still be battling the other smart kids so I could get my chance to maybe make it to the top of the heap, giving up nights of fun for working even harder so I could keep my hands on that greasy pole called success. I shudder at the thought that my parents could have chosen a less lengthy name.