Challenging Florida’s Don’t Say Gay Law

Equality Florida has joined the National Center for Lesbian Rights & families in Florida in filing suit against the State of Florida over the Don’t Say Gay law. Nadine Smith, Executive Director of Equality Florida stated, “We are proud to stand with the families who have fought to be recognized & with the students who have demanded to be included & respected. LGBTQ people are a part of every family, every community, every school & we will continue to stand firmly on the side of equality for all.” On March 31st lawyers from Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP & the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) filed a federal complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida challenging Florida House Bill 1557 known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. The diverse group of plaintiffs come from throughout Florida & have already suffered concrete harms as a result of this blatantly unconstitutional law. Imani Rupert-Gordon NCLR Executive Director stated, “This discriminatory law threatens the decades of progress we’ve made in creating safer schools for everyone. While this law will endanger all students, it will be particularly damaging to LGBTQ students & LGBTQ parents. We are filing this challenge only days after the bill was signed into law because the harms it is causing are already so incredibly clear. Every young person deserves to be safe at school & we will fight unconscionable laws like this until that is true for every student.” The plaintiffs are represented by Roberta Kaplan, Joshua Matz, John Quinn, Valerie Hletko, Kate Doniger & D. Brandon Trice of Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, Christopher Stoll of the National Center for Lesbian Rights & Elizabeth Schwartz. For More Info…