In April of 2022, a poll by Public Opinion Strategies found that 55% of Democratic voters supported Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ‘parental rights bill that banned teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade.
Two years later, a new poll from Pew Research says most Democrats don’t believe parents should have the final say if their children should not take school courses dealing with LGBT issues.
Fifty-one percent of Democrats said the schools, not students’ parents, should be in charge of this issue, while 54% of respondents said parents should be allowed to remove children from lessons on “sexual orientation or gender identity” if the ways these lessons are taught conflicts with their personal views. Among Republicans, 79% of GOP voters supported parental rights on this issue, with 32% of Democrats saying the same thing.
Forty-Eight percent of teachers who were polled on this same topic agreed that parents should have the option to take their kids out of lessons dealing with sexual orientation or gender identity.
In fact, Pew Research noted that elementary and middle school teachers were more likely than high school teachers to say that parents should be able to opt their children out.
During the 2022 Florida Legislative Session, Gov. DeSantis was ridiculed by the left and others in the media for supporting legislation that would ban the teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation for grades kindergarten -4th. The media labeled the bill “Don’t Say Gay,” but supporters of the bill pointed the legislation had nothing to do with “being gay.”
Democrats predicted the issue would come back and bite DeSantis in the election later that year. But when parents and voters learned about the legislation, support for the bill grew and gave DeSantis as resounding almost 20 percent victory in November of 2022.
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