DeSantis team highlights how he battled the media over parental rights
Ryan King
EXCLUSIVE — Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) political team is touting how he battled against the media for parental rights as he inches closer to a 2024 decision.
A new spot from the DeSantis war room released Thursday recounts how he stood his ground on the Parental Rights in Education Act, despite backlash from the detractors, who decried the legislation as anti-gay. DeSantis expanded upon the law Wednesday.
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“Does it say that in the bill? I’m asking you to tell me what’s in the bill,” DeSantis was shown in the clip grilling a reporter who asked him last year about how critics describe it as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. That phrase is not featured anywhere in the bill.
“If you are standing for what’s right, the media is absolutely going to attack you. So what? That just shows you that you’re over the target,” DeSantis said later in the clip.
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The Parental Rights in Education Act granted parents the right to sue for infractions. One provision restricted “classroom instruction” about gender identity or sexual orientation from grades kindergarten through third grade.
Specifically, it banned instruction of that nature in a “manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.”
On Wednesday, DeSantis pushed legislation to bump that threshold up to the eighth grade. One prominent critic of the Parental Rights in Education Act, the Walt Disney Company, feuded with DeSantis over the legislation.
DeSantis has since moved to have Florida seize control of its special district, eliciting a lawsuit from the company. Disney recently scrapped plans for a corporate campus in central Florida amid the dust-up.
The governor also recently signed the Let Kids Be Kids bill to protect “Florida’s children from permanent mutilating surgical procedures, gender identity politics in schools, and attending sexually explicit adult performances.”
“We’re not doing the pronoun Olympics in Florida. It’s not happening here,” DeSantis was shown saying in the new spot.
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As governor, DeSantis has risen to GOP stardom by wading into contentious culture war issues such as diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and promulgation of critical race theory.
DeSantis has routinely polled as the top potential Republican challenger to former President Donald Trump. Multiple reports indicate that he is eyeing a campaign launch date next week. Holdovers of his 2022 reelection bid have helped chart out his political activity as he mulls a run.