Karine Jean-Pierre falsely claims gay teachers in Florida forced to remove pictures of spouses from classrooms

During Thursday's daily White House press briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre falsely claimed that gay teachers in Florida are being forced to remove photographs of their spouses from their classrooms.

Jean-Pierre was commenting on Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis' "Parental Rights in Education" law, which the left continues to misleadingly refer to as the "Don't Say Gay" law.

The legislation prevents schools from teaching curricula regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. The law previously applied to kindergarten through third grade. On Wednesday, the Florida Board of Education decided to expand the law to include all public school grade levels in the state. The expansion is set to take effect in approximately one month.

"We're not removing anything here," stated Florida's Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. on Wednesday, "All we are doing is we are setting the expectations so our teachers are clear: that they are to teach to the standards."

Last year, Jean-Pierre called the advancement of the initial bill a "disturbing and dangerous trend" of "anti-LGBTQI+" and "anti-trans" legislation.

On Thursday, the press secretary again spoke out against the law, referring to it as the "state's dystopian 'Don't Say Gay' law."

"As this measure takes effect, it will prohibit all students, up to seniors in high school, from learning about our — learning about or discussing LGBTQI+ people in the classrooms," Jean-Pierre continued. "Teachers in Florida have already faced the devastating consequences of the existing law."

She then falsely claimed that DeSantis' "Parental Rights in Education" law prevents gay teachers from displaying photographs of their spouses in their classrooms.

"Under threat of having their licenses revoked, gay teachers have been forced to take down pictures of their spouses from their desks and censor their classroom materials," Jean-Pierre incorrectly claimed.

The press secretary then criticized Republican lawmakers for speaking out against cancel culture "all while threatening teachers with losing their jobs if they teach something that the MAGA extremists don't agree with."

The inaccurate claim originated from comments made by teachers during an Orange County school board meeting in June 2022. According to the teachers, during administrators-only meetings, the school district's lawyers had advised school officials to discourage educators from displaying same-sex photographs and rainbow items in their classrooms. However, the district later rejected the advice and noted it was not "formal guidance."

"All teachers are encouraged to keep pictures of their families in the classroom," the Orange County school district stated. "However, in K-3, it was cautioned against specific discussions in the event those discussions could be deemed classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity."

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