Want to Understand the Red-State Onslaught? Look at Florida.

The red-state drive to roll back civil rights is entering a new phase, perhaps best symbolized by Florida’s passage this week of the “Don’t Say ‘Gay’” bill censoring how schools discuss sexual orientation. President Joe Biden’s administration is leaning more heavily into the fight, even as business leaders are retreating from the battlefield. …

Since 2021, Republican-controlled states such as Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Arizona, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, Idaho, and Montana have advanced a torrent of socially conservative legislation. This includes laws limiting access to abortion, restricting voting rights, banning transgender girls from participating in high-school or college sports, barring transition medical treatment for transgender minors, censoring how teachers can talk about current or historical racial and gender inequities, removing licensing requirements to publicly carry firearms, increasing penalties for public protesters, and immunizing drivers who hit and injure protesters.

Florida alone has passed almost every item on that list, and this week added the “Don’t Say ‘Gay’” bill restricting classroom discussion of sexual orientation. This week the legislature is also expected to pass DeSantis’s “Stop Woke” act, which restricts how not only schools but also private companies holding diversity training can discuss racial-equity issues. CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic


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