State lawmakers held a hearing Tuesday on a bill that, if enacted, would prohibit LGBT Pride celebrations at Texas public schools.
The bill, H.B. 1507, was filed by Texas House Rep. Ken King (R-Hemphill) earlier in the legislative session. It calls for “prohibiting public school programs dedicated to celebrating or providing special instruction regarding a sexual preference” and allows for a fine to be levied on teachers and administrators who violate the law.
“I think having sexually oriented celebrations at school for all grades is teaching a sexual ideology no matter who is doing it,” King told KXAN.
During the hearing, Rep. James Talarico (D-Round Rock) asked King if he believed that being homosexual was a choice. King declined to stake a position, saying he “can’t answer that,” according to the San Antonio Express-News.
King’s bill is one of a number of legislative proposals seeking to regulate discussion and instruction about gender identity and sexuality at Texas schools, as previously reported in The Dallas Express.
School employees who violate the provisions of the bill could face a fine of up to $10,000, and their teacher’s permit could be suspended or terminated by the State Board of Education.
The Dallas Express reached out to Kelly Neidert of the local child advocacy organization Protect Texas Kids. She said that she fully supports King’s bill.
“Pride celebrations do not belong in schools. Many of these district’ pride’ celebrations have featured sexual drag queen performances and other explicit, inappropriate content. This is a real issue that needs to be addressed,” she claimed in an email to The Dallas Express.
Still, the bill is seeing pushback from Texas residents and lawmakers.
“If the schoolhouse can’t be a place where we celebrate who kids are, and teach them how to appreciate differences, then we’re failing as a state and risking their lives unnecessarily,” said Ryan Davenport, a Dallas ISD assistant principal and former staffer for the Republican Party of Texas, per the Herald Banner.
During the bill’s hearing, Talarico said, “If a group of students, whether its gay kids or Black kids, we want to make sure we are creating time to uplift those students so we are counterbalancing the historical discrimination against those kids,” KXAN reported.
King, however, did appear to waffle at the hearing when other lawmakers claimed that the bill was so broad that it could end up banning school dances and other functions. He claimed, in turn, that he was open to revising the bill’s language to better tailor it to what he opposes.
“If a teacher had an activity themselves, and it was a small group of kids that want to participate in it and their parents are OK with it, my bill is not trying to stop that. My bill is trying to stop an entire district forcing the entire student population to participate in something whether they want to or not,” King said.
The Dallas Express reached out to the LGBT rights advocacy organization Human Rights Campaign and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas for comment on this story but did not receive a response by press time.