Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law takes effect today. Its impact is already being felt

In early January, an eleventh-hour proposal filed in the Florida House of Representatives caught the eye of state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democrat representing Orange County. The bill didn’t seem particularly insidious; it aimed to advance the involvement of parents in their children’s schooling — something education advocates had been endorsing for years.

But then Smith read something that made his breath catch. The measure, officially titled Parental Rights in Education, would prohibit, in certain grade levels, “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity.”