Marjorie Taylor Greene has made her bigoted views and toxic stance on LGBTQ+ rights abundantly and loudly clear. So, of course, anything else that falls in the ever-expanding ditch of her skewed worldview would instantly find her as a loyal ally, and that’s what has happened with the “Parents Bill of Rights,” which is set to target LGBTQ+ youth and make their lives even more difficult. The House of Republicans has passed the problematic bill, and of course, MTG has made sure that you know that one of the votes in its favor was hers.
For a long time, she has been doing her best to advertise her highly problematic “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” bill that, if passed, would prohibit gender-affirming care for any patient. Greene has already proven that she has nothing better to do than being Trump’s official cheerleader who is either stringing together reasons to “love” him or trying to ridicule anyone daring to stand up against the six-second cameo star of Home Alone 2. So, her being “proud” of supporting a bill that has the potential to bypass being controversial to actually creating a very hostile and dangerous environment for LGBTQ+ students doesn’t really surprise us.
At first glance, the Parents Bill of Rights seems like simple legislation that would make it mandatory for schools to publicly post information about curricula for students as well as inform parents about all the books and other reading material available in the library. But the real meaning is that the people, who are already blindly following the words of individuals like Greene, would then be explicitly knowing that their child is learning the history of the fight for LGBTQ rights or that they checked out a similar book from the library that would equip them better to vehemently reject their child’s right to gender identity.
As explicitly highlighted by Representative Mary Gay Scanlon (via The New York Times), “This bill does not give parents any more rights than they already have” as it is instead an attempt to mold everyone’s right to a “one size fits all approach across the country, assuming the size that fits is a right-wing straight jacket.”
Yeah, she misspelled “straitjacket,” but she certainly didn’t misunderstand the heights this extremely unjust bill is planning to go to cut off any help, support, or hope of being understood that LGBTQ+ students can receive.
For starters, the bill, if passed, would ban the addition of LGBTQ+ issues or gender identity to the curriculum from Kindergarten to third grade. But it doesn’t end here. Even beyond the third grade, if a student exhibits the desire to be addressed by a gender pronoun of their choice, the school is liable to inform the parents. So, they will be forced to out students regardless of whether they are ready to share that information with their parents or not.
This also includes the compulsory rule wherein schools would have to convey to parents the purpose of all clubs and activities they will be offering to their children. So, if individuals, who either can’t come out to their parents yet or sadly can’t find acceptance when they do, form or join a school LGBTQ+ support group to seek the same amongst their peers, the school would have to inform their guardians.
As pointed out by State Rep. Cecil Brockman (via NC Policy Watch), “It’s the government saying there’s something wrong, something dangerous about homosexuality, and parents need to be warned. And it’s only applying that to people being LGBTQ.”
While the chances of the bill being passed by the Senate are slim to none, it is still beyond disappointing that we have people like Greene pushing such despicable views and refusing to grow beyond their increasingly detestable urge to control others’ rights to their gender identity.