I am pretty sure that The Philadelphia Inquirer and Devontae Torriente, a student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School would approve of Central Bucks School Board’s Policy 321, on restricting “Partisan, Political, or Social Policy Advocacy Activities” if it was aimed at preventing teachers from hanging MAGA banners or wearing golf shirts with DeSantis for President on them. It goes without saying — though I’ll say it anyway — that the Inky and Mr Torriente would say that a teacher, staffer, or administrator posting Bible verses or flags or banners promoting a particular religion should not be allowed.

Central Bucks’ new policy is an ‘anti-LGBTQ crusade’

I was once a closeted queer student in high school. Everyone who believes in freedom, equality, and fairness must do all that we can to defeat these policies. Children’s lives depend on it.

by Devontae Torriente, For The Inquirer | Thursday, January 12, 2023 | 12:00 PM EST

Devontae Torriente, from his UPenn Law School biography. Click to enlarge.

As a queer person in America, I am deeply troubled by the attacks on the LGBTQ community happening across the country. The anti-LGBTQ crusade has made its way to Pennsylvania and is now on display in the Central Bucks School District — one of the largest in the state.

Since Mr Torriente self-identifies as “queer”, I trust that I am able to use the description as well?^[1]Actually, I chose not to use the term.

On Tuesday, the Central Bucks school board passed Policy 321, which the board named the “Partisan, Political, or Social Policy Advocacy Activities” policy. In a 6-3 vote, the board decided to ban teachers from hanging Pride flags and other types of “advocacy.”

The policy serves to target and further marginalize LGBTQ students in the school district. Even though the proposed policy makes no explicit mention of LGBTQ status, there should be no confusion about who it targets.

I was once a closeted queer student in high school. I know firsthand the mental and emotional toll that being forced into the shadows can take. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. This is why everyone who believes in freedom, equality, and fairness must do all that we can to defeat these policies. Children’s lives depend on it.

In this, the author conflates his deciding to remain “closeted” in high school with teachers not being allowed to hang homosexual ‘pride’ flags or banners in their classrooms. He still had the choice to disclose his homosexuality, and, in the middle of the last decade that would hardly have been controversial. There might have been students who would cease associating with him, some who would mock or bully him, but that has nothing to do with Central Bucks teachers not being able to advocate for, or against, tolerance of homosexuals.

No, Mr Torriente wants the public schools to advocate for the normalization of homosexuality. But that is clearly a political position, and a position with which some people disagree.

The policy is dangerous because, as the Education Law Center argued in an October letter to the school board, the policy will have a “harmful and chilling effect” on classrooms in the school district.

An updated version of the proposal — posted last month by the Bucks County Courier Times — prohibits school district employees from advocating to students “any partisan, political, or social policy issue.” The proposal does not specify what this means, but prohibits “flag, banner, poster, sign, sticker, pin, button, insignia, paraphernalia, photograph, or other similar material” related to these partisan, political, or social policies. (The American and Pennsylvania flags are exempt.)

This ambiguity, however, is no accident; it is the point. Because it is unclear what type of speech or actions are prohibited — and because teachers’ jobs are on the line if they violate the policy — many teachers will err on the side of caution, and avoid discussing sexual orientation and gender identity altogether.

And that is exactly the way it should be! The public schools should not be discussing “sexual orientation and gender identity” at all; those are personal matters, which teachers and staff ought not to be engaging with young and impressionable students. As we have previously noted, the school board required teachers, administrators and staff to use students’ proper names, references and pronouns as recorded in school records, unless the individual student’s parents approved a change. This was done to avoid legal repercussions if a particular student wanted to claim he was the opposite sex, and his parents sued the school for ‘enabling’ gender transition.

The author takes the position — without saying it explicitly — that acceptance of “LGTBQ” status is somehow beyond the range of political or religious debate, but that is clearly wrong. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, in their various denominations, are all based on religious laws which state that homosexual activity is inherently sinful, and if not all priests, ministers, rabbis and imams of those religions are willing to go along with that, many are. Mr Torriente wants the public schools to take a position which contradicts the religious faiths of many families. That some people’s political positions, regardless of their religious faith, or lack thereof, do not accept homosexuality or transgenderism as reasonable or acceptable, is clearly and obviously known, and the author wants to use the public schools to fight that political position.

The public schools must, of course, enforce the law: students who assault or bully others over their sexual orientation are just as much in violation of school rules and state law as assault or bullying over anything else. We have seen the results of a school board which did not enforce the rules and report to law enforcement an in-school assault by Nikolas Cruz; I am absolutely in favor of serious and strict enforcement of those rules and laws. But the public schools, with their legally captive audiences, should not be in the business of pushing political or religious positions. The Central Bucks school board is doing the right thing.