Politician from a town called Snowflake quietly drops bid to ban the word ‘homosexuality’ from schools
Senator Sylvia Allen from Snowflake, Arizona, has agreed to amend the controversial bill (YouTube)
A Republican senator from the town of Snowflake in Arizona has backtracked on a bill banning the word ‘homosexuality’ from schools after facing widespread ridicule.
Snowflake senator Sylvia Allen attacked the state’s sex education laws with a proposal to remove all mention of LGBT+ matters from public school teaching materials.
Her bill would also prevent children under 12 from receiving any form of sex education, and require all curricula to be available for for public comment for at least 60 days before a school board could adopt it.
The move was thought to be a bid to undo the repeal of Arizona’s so-called ‘no promo homo’ law, a decades-old law forbidding teachers from ‘promoting homosexual lifestyles’.
Democratic lawmakers were vocal in their opposition of Allen’s bill, including Arizona’s state superintendent of public education, Kathy Hoffman, who warned it would inevitably bring a wave of lawsuits.
“I am appalled that it could take us backward as a state. Parents should always have a choice in what their child learns, but students deserve medically accurate, age-appropriate information to keep themselves safe and healthy,” she said to FOX 10.
Allen is now insisting that her bill was misinterpreted, and that her original goal was to provide parents with transparency about what’s being taught to their children.
She said in a statement: “Several news outlets have reported that my bill … prohibits the inclusion of homosexuality as part of any chosen curricula. They are misinterpreting the language. That was absolutely not my intention.
“I regret that it has diverted attention from the main goal of the bill, which is to assist parents with more access and transparency, so that they could make informed decisions about the health and welfare of their children.”
She has agreed to post an amendment to the bill that will remove the provision that raised concerns.
This isn’t the first time the Snowflake senator’s views have come under fire.
Last year Allen was forced to apologise for her offensive comments on the “browning” of America, as she warned the US would “look like South American countries very quickly” due to immigrants “flooding us and overwhelming us”.
She has also argued that people should be allowed to carry concealed weapons into public buildings because “there’s a moral erosion of the soul of America”, and suggested that Arizona should pass a law forcing people to go to church to help America’s “moral rebirth”.
