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A Florida teacher is in hot water for showing her fifth graders a Disney cartoon, Strange World, that features a biracial, gay character. There is no overt or implied sexual behavior in the animation. She is now being investigated for indoctrination. She says that she didn't know that the cartoon was banned.
A spokesman for the state weighed in. "While not the main plot of the movie, parts of the story involves a male character having and expressing feelings for another male character," the note reads in part. "In the future, this movie will not be shown."Really? For expressing feelings? This is 2023. There are many gay people in our world and there are always have been. Adults know this and kids know this. It is not strange to them. What would be strange is peddling a vision of a world where they do not exist and are forced to hide back in closets. Can you imagine an opposite world where only homosexuals would be allowed to be depicted, let's say the mythical Isle of Lesbos? How would that make heterosexuals feel? Ashamed, in denial. But we are still forced to peddle a straight, white version of "Perfectville." Because diversity is bad. I guess there will be no field trips to Miami Beach.A fifth-grade teacher said she is being investigated by the Florida Department of Education after she showed her students “Strange World,” a 2022 animated Disney movie featuring a character who is biracial and gay. Jenna Barbee, a teacher in Hernando County’s Winding Waters K-8 school, told her story in a widely viewed TikTok post over the weekend.On May 9, Barbee addressed the school board members during public comment at a meeting. In attendance was the parent who had complained, school board member Shannon Rodriguez, she acknowledged during the meeting.“A school board member, an elected official of power, who was supposed to be nonpartisan, is allowed to present to the public that she is Christian and that God appointed her to the board. And yet it is indoctrinated that I showed a Disney movie. I’m a first-year teacher,” said Barbee.The teacher told district board members the movie was in no way sexual and was tied to the current lesson plan of the environment and ecosystems.Barbee claimed in the meeting Rodriguez “came to my school took me away from my students to tell me how bad and wrong I was.”Kids and young people today do not share their parent's generations hang ups regarding race and sexuality. That is a very good thing and it is not going to change. Troglodytes like Ron De Santis are on what is plainly a losing side of a battle that they will not ultimately win. God did not appoint these school board members, no matter what they choose to believe.Gay people have given us some of our greatest gifts as human beings. Leonardo DaVinci, Alan Turing, Oscar Wilde, Ian McKellen, the list is endless.A truly strange world would be one where we pretend they do not exist.