When the Sun-Sentinel is this unhinged over a parents’ rights law it is time to switch to full comic strip content.

To say that the over-the-target-reaction to Florida’s HB1557 law has been extreme is to traffic in understatement. Nationwide, the journalism complex has been steadfastly lying about the legislation, resorting to the misnomer “Don’t Say Gay Bill” for weeks, as they trot out adults claiming they are being silenced, or even threatened, because the state wants the same content standard in kindergarten classes that is applied to Disney cartoons. 

Now, with the bill’s passage, and Governor Ron DeSantis poised to sign the law, local paper the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has lost all control. In a new column from the paper’s editorial board, they lash out at the bill, call for the resignation of the governor’s spokesperson, and make themselves out to be consummate fools in the process. This is such a journalistic embarrassment one has to behold the audacious indolence.

The emotional hysterics launch from the very start, with the headline bleating, Cruel gay-bashing, with predictably disastrous results | Editorial. We have two problems already, and we are not even into the content. As has been pointed out ad nauseam, there is no reference to “gays” in the bill. Those racing to call this “anti-gay” need to ignore that this also would encompass heterosexual talk in classrooms of the same nature. 

As for those “disastrous results”? Uh, No. You cannot attribute results to a bill that has yet to be signed, let alone implemented. Calm down, because all you have done so far is predict the worst based on emotional reactions, without showing anything concrete. The use of “bashing” displays this, as nothing in the bill can be accurately described with this charge.

To open their screed, the editors go after DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw, because she dared to describe those pushing against this bill to be “groomers.” Granted, there may be some extreme application there, but for the paper to gasp and swoon over such language is precious, when we have seen for weeks those backing the bill described as “homophobes,” and worse. One columnist from USA Today wished for one of the crafters of the bill to be hit with a tornado, as our own Sister Toldjah can attest.

Oh, I'm not outraged, dude. I actually feel very sorry for you. See, I know how to disagree with people without wishing their lives and homes destroyed. Check yourself. https://t.co/JgvG6cSoav

— Sister Toldjah 😁 (@sistertoldjah) March 16, 2022

In order to support the already thin accusations, the Sun-Sentinel goes on to list other supposed aggressions from Ron DeSantis, and they manage to step on more rakes in the process. Bearing in mind this is the same paper that weeks ago tried to claim DeSantis was a Nazi sympathizer when just days earlier he recognized Holocaust Remembrance Day at a synagogue and spoke out against antisemitism, they now go on to claim that he is trying to expunge the teaching of slavery and black history, charging he has “effectively banned any honest teaching about the influence of slavery in American life and the endurance of racism in contemporary America.”

Is it too much to ask for a journalism outlet to do some research and look into the very topics it is covering – you know, committing the act of journalism? Florida has a law on the books concerning the teaching they are carping about. HB1213 covers Educational Instruction of Historical Events, specifically slavery and the Holocaust. It was signed into law in June of 2020 – by Governor Ron DeSantis. 

The paper goes on to say that Pushaw needs to step down because of her supposed inflammatory words. It quotes one state senator as saying, “She effectively called every single person who’s against this bill a sexual predator.” The obliviousness is that this was delivered in a hectoring editorial calling all supporters homophobes, mind you. But what makes this piece of journalism so delicious is that not only does the editorial board completely invalidate their own hyperbolic claims, they actually come close to making Christina Pushaw’s case. In one toss-away line, these editors neutered all of their outrages.

After making the claim that this law concerns “raw gay-bashing,” the editors un-cleverly inserted the actual text of the bill they are frothing over. It manages to disprove this red-in-the-face accusation, as those words are found nowhere, and it underscores merely the avoidance of topics that are deemed to not be age-appropriate. But then the editorial board delivers its most unintentional invalidation.

This milestone in political evil does not simply prohibit teachers from addressing sexual and gender issues in grades K-3, which they haven’t even been doing. It will make teachers afraid to honestly address sexuality and gender identity questions at any age, whether in sex education classes or other contexts.

(record scratch sound effect)

I’m sorry now, what was that? Did you just write, “…which they haven’t even been doing”?! Do you mean to say that you have lost your collective minds over a law that perpetuates something that is currently not happening? You just stated, therefore, it is hateful that a law that wants to codify a non-practice that already has been in place. Not teaching these topics to kindergartners has not been hateful and threatening, but keeping that standard in place will now be hateful. A brilliant read on the subject, gang.

This has been the same empty argument we hear from those claiming Critical Race Theory is not even being taught. Well, if that is the case then why is preventing it from starting to be taught a problem? We could insert another sound effect here – crickets.

And what the Sun-Sentinel fails to grasp here is that they unintentionally are suggesting Christina Pushaw was closer to being accurate. If these topics are not being taught today why are you so upset at a law mandating that remains the case – unless you have it in mind to begin doing so? The editors themselves have stated these topics are not being taught, so outrage at this law means they now want to teach the subjects of sex and gender orientation to the K-3rd grades. Why is that the case then?

Based on the response to this question, they also want to teach the young ones about crickets.