‘Don't Say Gay' expansion passes House committee
Rep. Mack Butler, R-Rainbow City, speaking to the House Education Policy Committee on April 9, 2025, in the Alabama House in Montgomery, Alabama. Butler's bill that would expand the state's "Don't Say Gay" law passed the committee on April 9, 2025.(Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector)
An Alabama House committee approved legislation to expand the state's 'Don't Say Gay' law throughout K-12 public schools on Wednesday.
HB 244, sponsored by Rep. Mack Butler, R-Rainbow City, would prohibit public school teachers at all grade levels from teaching or discussing gender identity or sexuality. The legislation also prohibits the display of pride flags and insignia in the classroom.
An amendment from Rep. Mark Gidley, R-Hokes Bluff, was adopted unanimously to remove a portion of the bill that would prohibit referring to students by their preferred gender if it conflicts with their assigned sex at birth.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
HB 246, sponsored by Rep. Scott Stadthagen, R-Hartselle, would give public educators legal immunity and students immunity from discipline for using a person's legal name and pronouns aligned with their reproductive organs, instead of the name and gender with which they identify.
'Some felt there was another bill that is addressing that issue. So it's still there to some degree,' Butler said.
The law currently bans such discussions from kindergarten to fifth grade, but Butler said the expansion aligns with President Donald Trump's agenda and executive order.
'We're trying to get as close as we could to President Trump's executive order,' Butler said.
The House Education Policy Committee held a public hearing on the legislation last week, which drew significant criticism from mostly transgender and nonbinary Alabamians. Former Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, the first openly gay representative elected to the Alabama Legislature, said her sexuality did not make her colleagues gay.
'And you all who served with me know that. Just because I served with you doesn't mean that you became gay either,' she said last week.
Butler said the law will improve public education.
'If you saw the headlines yesterday, there were almost 40,000 applicants for the CHOOSE Act, telling you that clearly there's dissatisfaction of what we're doing with public education, and this will actually help,' he said.
The bill will now be considered by the full House.
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Federal judge dismisses lawsuit challenging minority representation on Alabama board
The Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, Alabama as seen on Feb. 4, 2025. A law that maintains diversity on the Alabama Real Estate Appraisers Board remains after case challenging it is dismissed. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector) A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit last week that challenged a state law and administrative regulation requiring the Alabama Real Estate Appraisers Board to have at least two minority members. U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker, Jr. dismissed the case on Friday after both parties agreed to end the proceedings after the plaintiff in the case, American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER), objected to being subjected to discovery. With both parties agreeing to end the litigation, Huffaker then agreed to the stipulations from both parties and ended the case with prejudice. The American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER), a group founded by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, argued that a 1989 law requiring that 'no less than two of the nine board members shall be of a minority race' on the board violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Huffaker, appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump, dismissed the case without weighing in on the merits of the case after the litigants agreed to end it. Pamela Wyatt, president of the Alabama Association of Real Estate Brokers (AAREB), a mostly-Black organization that intervened to preserve the law, said in a statement that the case 'allowed us to demonstrate how important state laws ensuring diversity on state boards are to people in Alabama.' 'State boards make decisions that affect all Alabamians and should be reflective of the communities they serve,' the statement said. 'For the past three decades, this Alabama law has aimed to ensure that state boards reflect the state's rich diversity, and we are thrilled that this case has been dismissed with prejudice.' The association intervened in the case after Gov. Kay Ivey's office said in court filings that the regulations were an 'unconstitutional requirement that 'she does not—and will not—enforce,'' according to court documents. The governor's office did object to AAER's challenge to inclusivity language in the statute. Blum, the founder of the AAER, brought a lawsuit that led to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 to strike down race-conscious college admissions. The AAER sued the state after the appraisers board rejected an application filed by Laura Clark, a member of AAER, because her appointment would have violated state statute that at least two of the board members be nonwhite. Clark, who is white, also serves as the interim president of the Alabama Center for Law and Liberty, a conservative nonprofit law firm that says it advocates for 'limited government, free markets, and strong families.' The AAREB said Alabama's long history of racial discrimination in housing made minority representation on the state appraisal board critical to fairness. 'This particular law is critically important for that organization and many, many, other real estate professionals of color, and people of color in the state, who will suffer immensely if the law is struck down,' said Brooke Menschel, an attorney with Democracy Forward, representing the AAREB, last year. The parties proceeded to discovery last July after Huffaker rejected a request for summary judgment filed by AAER for the court to rule in its favor. AAER was listed as a plaintiff in the case, which subjected it to discovery. That meant opposing counsel could depose the members and staff of the organization and request documents to be used as evidence during litigation. 'Rather than continue to litigate an issue that both plaintiff and defendant agree is unconstitutional, we went ahead and agreed to have the case be dismissed,' said Haley Dutch, an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation. In the spring, AAER requested to be removed as a party to the case and have Clark added instead, which would have subjected her to discovery. 'AAER brought this case on Ms. Clark's behalf, relying on the doctrine of associational standing to assert her interests, not its own,' AAER said in a request filed with the court in March to substitute Clark for AAER as the plaintiff. 'AAER is thus not a necessary or indispensable party to the litigation.' Democracy Forward opposed the request. 'It is a fundamental rule of litigation that when you choose to sue you have to expose yourself to discovery,' Democracy Forward said in a filing in April opposing the substitution. 'AAER has a clear choice. If AAER does not want to litigate this case, it may voluntarily dismiss this litigation and Ms. Clark can file a new case if and when she has standing with regard to a live controversy. But if AAER wants to maintain this action, it must sit for a deposition, like all other litigants. It cannot shirk its discovery obligations.' Huffaker rejected the request for substitution. 'What does appear clear is that AAER declared itself the jockey in a race that it started and has ridden this horse in this manner since February 2024,' Huffaker said. 'Clark could have been the jockey from the outset, but AAER chose not to proceed in that manner. Similarly, AAER could have switched riders (i.e., Clark for AAER) well before the amended pleadings deadline.' 'The Court will not tolerate such tactics,' Huffaker added.
New York Times
9 hours ago
- New York Times
Piecing Together the Story of a Would-Be Assassin
Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together. There are some stories that you just can't let go. That's what happened to me with the mysterious case of Thomas Crooks, the 20-year-old who last July tried to assassinate Donald J. Trump at a presidential campaign rally in Butler, Pa. I remember the moment well. It was early Saturday evening when my phone began to light up with notifications: Mr. Trump had been shot. By the following morning, the authorities had identified Mr. Crooks as the gunman who fired eight bullets toward Mr. Trump, grazing him in the ear. Mr. Crooks had also killed a bystander and injured two others before the Secret Service shot and killed him. Immediately, my colleagues and I began trying to learn everything we could about Mr. Crooks. I worked the phones while other reporters cultivated sources in law enforcement and knocked on the doors of Mr. Crooks's classmates and neighbors, looking for clues about why his life had taken a murderous turn. Within a few days, we published an article tracing Mr. Crooks's path from honor student to gunman. The piece offered an eye-opening portrait, but there was still so much about him that remained unknown. But the world seemed to move on. The presidential race was underway; President Joseph R. Biden Jr. dropped out and Vice President Kamala Harris replaced him on the ticket; there was another apparent assassination attempt, this time at one of Mr. Trump's golf courses in Florida; and then, Mr. Trump reclaimed the presidency. I was busy, too, working on a series of stories exploring another pressing matter: the dependence of American companies on undocumented migrant workers. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Democrat Will Boyd announces 2026 campaign for Alabama governor
Will Boyd, a pastor and three-time Democratic nominee, announced last week that he would run for Alabama governor. (Courtesy Will Boyd) Three-time Democratic candidate Will Boyd announced his candidacy for Alabama's governor last week. Boyd said in an interview Monday that his 2016 campaign for Congress; 2018 campaign for lieutenant governor and 2022 race for U.S. Senate were not failures but opportunities to be recognized in the state. 'I believe those were all opportunities for me to be seen more by communities all across Alabama, and more importantly, to hear what issues residents of Alabama are facing,' Boyd said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The challenges for any Democratic candidate going in the 2026 race are formidable. The party has only won one statewide race in Alabama since 2008, and has not won the governor's mansion since 1998. In the last 12 years, only one Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Walt Maddox in 2018, managed to get more than 40% of the vote. Boyd said he is running for governor because he wants to give Alabamians an option to vote for a candidate that does not have ulterior motives. 'I would love to see a people type of campaign where there's someone who's really focused on the people of Alabama and not enriching themselves, or not just getting into an office and trying to entrench themselves to stay there. We need people who don't care whether or not they're voted out in the next cycle,' Boyd said. 'They just want to do what's right, and that's what I'm all about.' Boyd said his top three priorities as governor would be health care, economic development and community stability. Each priority expands and connects to issues he said he has seen in each county over the last decade. 'One of the things that I traditionally have done is, as soon as I reach a county, I talk about the top issues facing that county,' he said. 'I immediately try to, in my speech, or in my time with people who are in the area, share what I believe could be a resolution to their problems.' Boyd moved to Alabama around 2010 after growing up in South Carolina and living in Illinois. He got a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of South Carolina, an MBA at Regis University, a PhD in Religion from Christian Bible College, a PhD in Organization and Management from Capella University, and a Doctor of Psychology with a Christian worldview (PsyD) from St. James The Elder Theological Seminary. He is also the pastor at St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church in Florence, Alabama. According to campaign finance records, Boyd has not filed any fundraising dollars since establishing his campaign committee on May 27. Currently, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) is the only other candidate in the race. According to campaign finance records, Tuberville has raised over $3 million. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
