Florida’s presence in the news cycle is rather ubiquitous, and that too for some of the weirdest reasons. But it is one thing to hurl a live alligator through a Wendy’s drive-through window, or give a call to shoot down a hurricane, and quite another for schools to censor Shakespeare.
According to a report by the Associated Press, students in Florida’s Hillsborough County Public School district “will be reading only excerpts from William Shakespeare’s plays for class rather than the full texts under redesigned curriculum guides developed, in part, to take into consideration the state’s new law that restricts classroom materials whose content can be deemed sexual.”
The AP report goes on to explain the “rationale” behind the school district’s decision saying, “Several Shakespeare plays use suggestive puns and innuendo, and it is implied that the protagonists have had premarital sex in Romeo and Juliet.”
There’s no denying that there is a lot of sexual content in the works of Shakespeare, ranging from pedophilia (Juliet was 13 when a 16-year-old Romeo had sex with her), to rape, mutilation and murder of women (Chiron and Dimitrius rape Lavinia, chop of her hands and tongue so she can tell no one, and then her father Titus murders her to “protect” her from “shame”). Shakespeare’s female characters would also often cross-dress and pretend to be male (Rosalind and Portia). While this is something that should be acceptable in a world where it is acceptable for women to wear trousers, Florida’s lawmakers are famously terrified of drag queens, because apparently it is still unacceptable for men to wear women’s clothing. Sigh!
The decision is in response to the Parental Rights in Education legislation (dubbed the Don’t Say Gay law), that was passed by Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature last year. According to this law, “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” This prohibition was extended to other grades this year. Schools are also prevented from using gender affirming pronouns in line with a student’s preference.
Meanwhile, the school district issued a statement clarifying that they “have not excluded Shakespeare from our high school curriculum. Students will still have the physical books to read excerpts in class.”
Previously, a book based on the life of a gay penguin couple was banned in Florida. The book titled And Tango Makes Three tells the story of two gay penguins who first tried to hatch a replica of an egg, and then were given a spare egg from a heterosexual penguin couple who were unable to hatch two eggs together.
The original Don’t Say Gay law and the subsequent legislation extending its scope, were both championed by Florida governor Ron DeSantis, whose dream to become the next President of the United States requires him to up his game with conservative voters, many of whom are still under Donald Trump’s spell.
Feature image courtesy: Mike Bird via Pexels
Deborah Grey 
