Tulsi Gabbard Pretty Sure 'Woke Sexual Values' Cause Low Reading Scores. She Just Knows This.
Screengrab Twitter
We regret to inform you that Tulsi Gabbard is still talking. Vladimir Putin's second favorite American shit-stirrer has a long-ago history of anti-gay and anti-trans activism. Shhhhh, don't tell Glenn Greenwald! But supposedly that's all in the past, at least the anti-gay stuff. She insisted when she was in Congress and her previous anti-gay positions were uncovered, that it was all in the past.
Anyway, here's Gabbard holding forth today on Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill. Not because it's gross and bigoted and harms families, you sweet, summer child! No, she's mad because it's not gross and bigoted enough.
When I first heard about Florida\u2019s Parental Rights bill, I was shocked it only protects children K-3. Third grade? How about 12th grade\u2014or not at all. Meanwhile, schools are failing: 1 in 4 graduates are functionally illiterate. Parents should raise their kids, not the governmentpic.twitter.com/CycF8cKRh3— Tulsi Gabbard \ud83c\udf3a (@Tulsi Gabbard \ud83c\udf3a) 1649067752
"You may have seen in the news recently, or you may be a parent who's experienced how parental rights are under attack all across the country as the government tries to usurp parents' rights and responsibility to raise their own children," she begins, parroting the latest rightwing panic over schools that insist on teaching true facts about American history, race, and gender.
"We should all support the Parental Rights in Education bill that was recently passed in Florida, which very simply bans government and government schools from indoctrinating woke sexual values in our schools to a captive audience that is by law required to attend," she went on.
FACTCHECK: No, and fuck you.
This bill uses deliberately vague language to empower parents to sue schools for any discussion of sexual orientation they deem not to be "age appropriate." No one thinks a teacher who mentions going to the Jaguars game with her husband is going to get sued. But no one knows what will happen if a teacher says she's going to go watch football with her wife. And legislators are counting on that ambiguity to make sure that educators voluntarily censor themselves to keep any acknowledgment that gay people exist out of public education. And, by the by, the bill requires schools to out kids to their parents if they seek to change their pronouns.
But go on!
“As I read the legislation, I gotta tell you, I was shocked to learn it only protects kids from kindergarten until third grade," she intoned ominously. "Third grade? What about 12th grade or not at all?”
Sorry, kids, no more "woke sexual values" for you. Would Auntie Tulsi rather kids just learn about sex from scrolling through porn on their phones, as their parents and Jesus intended, because the government has “no place in our personal lives” or “our bedrooms”? We are just curious!
"Parents are the ones responsible for instilling a moral foundation, not the government," says the darling of a movement currently experiencing a bout of explosive diarrhea at the suggestion American history might be taught from a factual perspective, as those woke facts sully the story they tell themselves about the great and glorious rise of "the greatest nation on earth" with icky details about slavery, the genocide of Native Americans, systemic racism, and countless dirty little wars in the Pacific and Central America.
Describing American schools as "failing," Gabbard bemoans the fact that "34 percent of our students are below basic reading level in the fourth grade," and "25 percent of high school graduates are functionally illiterate."
And Tulsi knows why! It's because they're spending all day in a lesbian drum circle coaching each other on how to have trans abortions!
"Now I’m confident that if our schools focused on educating our kids, teaching them the fundamentals, things like English, math, science, civics, history we would see our literacy rates improve and set our young people up for success,” Gabbard finishes.
And because it's a free country, you can be confident in any dumb thing you want. You don't even have to have a degree in education or a child in a public school — hell, you don't even have to run a basic Google search.
Although, if you did, you might find that the percentage of kids who scored "proficient" in 2019 was higher than in 1992, before shit got all "woke." And you might find that most of Finland and Sweden, with their greasy socialism and early focus on educating children about sex and relationships, score as well as we do, and often better. Hell, you might even speculate that leaving vast numbers of American kids hungry during school hours relates to their educational achievement, if you were inclined to spend more time Googling than tweeting.
But that would be "woke" shit, and Tulsi Gabbard ain't got time for that. Not when there's culture war to be raged.
OPEN THREAD.
[Mediaite]
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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore with her wonderful husband and a houseful of teenagers. When she isn't being mad about a thing on the internet, she's hiding in plain sight in the carpool line. She's the one wearing yoga pants glaring at her phone.
