Speak up now for LGBTQ rights in Florida
Dear Friends,
Tampa Friends ask Friends in Florida to begin an immediate phone campaign to Florida state Representatives, Senators, and to Governor DeSantis regarding specific draft legislation currently under consideration by the legislature that targets LGBTQ people. Please see the Minute and background below. This is time sensitive: action is needed within the next 2 days (by February 23).
• If you do not know who your representatives are, they can be found at the following link: www.myfloridahouse.gov.
• Email the Governor at GovernorRon.Desantis@eog.myflorida.com and make a phone call to the Governor’s office at 850-717-9337.
• For additional assistance, please call the State Assistance Information Line at 800-342-3557.
Minute Adopted by the Tampa Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
Minute 1, Second Month, 2022:
Tampa Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, as a witness to the discriminatory and unjust legislative targeting of the LGBTQ community by the Governor and members of the Florida Legislature, hereby call on Governor DeSantis and the Florida Legislature to reject all such bills, including but not limited to HB 211 – Transgender Youth Medical Ban (would jail doctors for providing lifesaving, gender-affirming noninvasive care to young people); HB 1557 and SB 1834 – Parental Rights in Education (“Don’t Say Gay”); HB 7 and SB 148 – Individual Freedom (“Stop WOKE Act”); and HB 747 and SB 1820 – Protections of Medical Conscience (License to Discriminate in Healthcare).
Background for Our Quaker Community:
As members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), we feel called to witness to the unjust legislations currently under consideration by the Florida legislature: HB 211 – Transgender Youth Medical Ban (would jail doctors for providing lifesaving, gender-affirming noninvasive care to young people); HB 1557 and SB 1834 – Parental Rights in Education (“Don’t Say Gay”); HB 7 and SB 148 – Individual Freedom (“Stop WOKE Act”); and HB 747 and SB 1820 – Protections of Medical Conscience (License to Discriminate in Healthcare).
These bills target among the most vulnerable of our fellow Floridians, the LGBTQ community, as well as educators, by banning health care services (HB 211; HB 747 and SB 1820; and HB 167); controlling speech in classrooms about race, gender, and sexuality, and banning books (HB 1557 and SB 1834; HB 7 and SB 148).
The Transgender Youth Medical Care Ban, HB 211, puts politicians between trans youth, their parents, and their doctor. The text of the bill can be found at https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/211 . (For other bills, at this site one can substitute the desired bill number.)
According to Equality Florida, attacks on the transgender community in Florida (especially transgender women) are increasing following the state’s passage of the ban on trans youth in sports (signed into law by Governor DeSantis on June 1, 2021). In addition, viral videos show trans children in Florida schools being physically bullied. A 2017 report by the CDC reported that 35% of trans students are bullied at school and 35% attempt suicide. The full report can be found at Transgender Identity and Experiences of Violence Victimization, Substance Use, Suicide Risk, and Sexual Risk Behaviors Among High School Students — 19 States and Large Urban School Districts, 2017 | MMWR (cdc.gov).
As Quakers, consistent with our belief of that of God in everyone and our testimony of social and economic justice, in order to meet our responsibilities to the community and the world, we are to “do all in our power to end governmental, social, economic, and educational injustices in our community and to create equal opportunity for all. {To that end} we are to encourage inclusiveness and discourage discrimination…encourage all efforts to overcome prejudices…and to cherish diversity.” (Southeastern Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends Faith and Practice, 4th edition 2013)
credit: Lynn Carol Henderson (St. Pete)
We are called by Scripture to love our neighbor – all our neighbors, with no exceptions (Leviticus 19:9-18 and Matthew 22:37-39). As Quaker William Penn noted, “Love is the most difficult lesson in Christianity; but, for that reason, it should be most our care to learn it.”
Therefore, Tampa Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, recognizing the unloving action, intolerance, and injustice of these proposed bills, calls on our fellow Floridians including all our Florida state Representatives and Senators, as well as Governor DeSantis to reject all such bills.
In the Light,
Nil Wilkins
Interim Clerk, Tampa Monthly Meeting