'Don't Say Gay' Bill Filed In Georgia Senate Days Before Important Legislative Deadlines

GEORGIA — Georgia Republican state senators filed their own version of Florida's controversial "Don't Say Gay" bill on Tuesday, just a week before an important legislative deadline for bills to have a shot at becoming law.

Senate Bill 613, filed by state Sen. Carden Summers and sponsored by nine other Republican state senators, emerged in Georgia on the same day the Florida legislature passed its "Don't Say Gay" bill.

SB 613 aims to "deter developmentally inappropriate classroom discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation," according to the bill.

"Additionally, some teachers and other personnel in private and nonpublic schools and programs have inappropriately discussed gender identity with children who have not yet reached the age of discretion," the bill reads.

Summers told Axios he introduced the bill as a "conversation starter."

"No teacher should be promoting gender identity discussions with small children in a classroom setting — which is exactly what this bill says and why I support it," Burt Jones, one of the bill's sponsors who's also running for lieutenant governor, said in a statement to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

While the bill's filing alarmed the LGBTQ+ community and its allies, some political experts said it's nearly impossible for the bill to advance at this point, The Hill reported.

Thursday is the last day for bills to advance through their assigned committees in Georgia, and the Education and Youth Committee — where SB 613 sits — is not scheduled to meet.

Additionally, Tuesday is Crossover Day in the General Assembly, which is the last day for all legislation introduced this session to pass either the full House or Senate to have a chance at becoming law, Axios reported.

However, parts of the bill could be added to another bill through an amendment, some legal experts said, according to The Hill.

Georgia's bill differs from Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill, in that it only addresses private and nonpublic schools.

Florida's bill limits discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity in the state's elementary schools, and restricts how the topics can be discussed by older students.

Differing further from Florida, SB 613 also puts critical race theory in its crosshairs — without specifically mentioning CRT by name — saying private and nonpublic schools have embraced curricula and programs in recent years that "promote the concept that there is a hierarchy of oppressor and oppressed and that one's race, gender, sexual orientation, color or national origin irrevocably determines his or her place in that hierarchy."

It states that no private or nonpublic school could promote "that the advent of slavery in the territory that is now the United States constituted the true founding of the United States," the bill reads.

"It's a throwback to decades of stigma that existed in the past," Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, told Axios. "It's a concerted effort to roll back the clock and try to eliminate LGBTQ folks from public life."

Related:

• Controversial 'Don't Say Gay' Bill Passes Florida Senate: Report
• Hundreds Of Students Walk Out To Protest 'Don't Say Gay' Bill