LGBTQ bias continues in Florida schools
This past week, we learned another teacher was fired from a publicly funded Florida school simply for being gay.
Sixth-grade history teacher Steven Arauz said administrators at Forest Lake Education Center in Longwood had long praised his work.
But as soon as the school— which receives more than $1 million in tax dollars and tax credits each year— learned he was gay, administrators sent him an email telling him his “conduct … does not comport with the Seventh-day Adventist church’s standards.”
Arauz said they gave him strict orders: “Hand over your keys. Hand over your badge. You’re not allowed on Forest Lake property.”
Arauz was floored. “These are people who I have known since I was a child,” he said. “People whose homes I have visited. They recruited me before I went to college.”
Arauz isn’t alone.
Last year, I shared the story of Monica Toro Lisciandro, a theater teacher at Covenant Christian School in Brevard County who said the principal called her into his office to say he’d heard an “allegation” against her. The alleged crime? She had a girlfriend.
Toro Lisciandro confirmed she did andwas immediately fired. Not because of her job
performance, but because of whom she loved.
Covenant Christian received more than $900,000 through the state’s voucher program.
But discrimination against teachers is just the tip of this intolerance iceberg.
Dozens of publicly funded voucher schools in Florida have policies that blatantly discriminate against LGBTQ students and families.
Many schools spelled them out in writing on their websites— until the Orlando Sentinel started reporting on them. Then, some of these faith-based schools started scrubbing their sites. Few came out to say theywere no longer discriminating; they just wanted to erase the evidence.
One Volusia County school that received more than $1 million a year told students that simply uttering thewords “I am gay” was “basis for dismissal.” A Merritt Island school that received more than $700,000 told students they could be suspended for five days for lying or cheating but expelled for being gay.
All told, the Sentinel found more than 80 schools with blatant, written policies— against students and their parents.
An Air Force veteran shared how her partner’s children were welcomed at one voucher school when her partner was married to aman but denied admission to the same school once she fell in love with a woman who had served this country.
Children are being taught to discriminate. With tax dollars.
The discrimination is defended by the governor, education commissioner, legislative leaders and even the leading nonprofit that administers the state’s voucher program.
We live in aworld where the Pope supports samesex civil unions and yet a state where the children of same-sex couples can be denied publicly funded educations.
The Pope says: “Homosexual people have a right to be in a family. They are the children of God.”
Florida says: But they don’t have a right to enter all the schools we fund.
Defenders of this discrimination claim it comes down to religious freedom — saying church-run schools have a right to refuse service. Defenders of racial segregation used to make similar arguments. A judge in Virginia issued an infamous ruling in1965 that said God placed the races on different continents because “he did not intend for the races to mix.”
Defenders also stress that parents are the ones who choose where to use the vouchers. (Though the state must approve all the schools eligible to cash them.) And they are quick to note that the LGBTQ families who are banned from some schools are free to go elsewhere.
Welcome back in time to “Separate But Equal.”
Florida in 2020 is where Louisiana was in1890.
I believe the arc of history and justice will show that discrimination against gay families is just as wrong as discrimination against people of color.
Still, I don’t presume to tell people what they can believe. I do, however, believe that government should not fund discrimination.
“If youwant to be discriminatory, you are free to do that,” said Arauz. “But not withmy tax money.”
Some Democratic legislators have proposed rules that say any school that wants to take public money must also be willing to serve all the public.
But Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republican legislators and some Democratic members of the Black legislative caucus have objected.
Also obstructing the fight for equality is Step Up for Students, the private nonprofit that makes millions administering the state’s voucher program.
Even after the Sentinel documented dozens of schools with blatant discrimination policies, Step Up CEO Doug Tuthill penned a guest column for the Sentinel saying he saw no evidence of “mistreatment.”
Apparently he doesn’t view discrimination as mistreatment.
Some people ask why any gay person would want to attend or work at a school that didn’t want them. Segregationists used to ask similar questions about why blacks would want to go places they weren’t wanted. These people are asking the wrong question.
Besides, Arauz said this faith is his community. “I was raised in this church community,” he said. “I wanted to serve my church.”
Arauz’s desires were echoed by the pastor at his own Adventist church, Whole Life, who not only told the Sentinel that he would trust Arauz with his own children but that Christ preached inclusion. “Our view has always been whomever Jesus decides to exclude, we’ll exclude them,” said Associate Pastor Jeff Cinquemani. “But we haven’t found anybody like that yet.”
Amen, pastor. Florida has been dragged kicking and screaming into the age of equality. Courts forced the state to do the right thing on everything from gay adoption to gay marriage. Every step of theway, lawmakers desperately clung to the last straws of legalized discrimination.
That will probably end one day— maybe by the courts; maybe by younger generations that simply don’t understand all the eagerness to divide.
After all, while Arauz said a few adults at his former school told him he was unworthy of teaching there, he received nothing but support from his former students.
“The problem is not with our younger generation,” he said. “The kids are just so over all this.”