DeSantis officials grill ‘historian’ for comparing Florida parental rights law to Nazis

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Gov. Ron DeSantis officials went on the offensive against Axios and a “Holocaust historian” for amplifying a claim that there are parallels between the German Nazi Party and Florida’s parental rights laws in the modern day.

“Holocaust historian sees parallels in today’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws,” the story’s headline read, with Axios falsely designating Florida’s parental rights law – which applies regardless of LGBTQ status in schools against teaching gender ideology or sexual orientation as part of classroom instruction – as “anti-LGBTQ+.”

[Nazis] ramped up a propaganda campaign, banning publications by and about LGBTQ+ people and telling Germans the “homosexual lifestyle” posed a danger to their children and the country’s values.

“Sound familiar?” historian Jake Newsome asked the audience of about 50 people, several of whom hummed in agreement.

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Why it matters: “In today’s era of the Republican Party’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bills,” Newsome said, referring to a nickname used by critics for Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law and others like it, “we need the pink triangle more than ever.”

Axios

DeSantis communications director Bryan Griffin called the Axios author a “journo-activist” for the characterizations.

“Journo-activists continue to repeat the lies about the Parental Rights in Education bill that—just last week—the media had to admit were all fabricated when the settlement was reached that dismisses the case against the law,” Griffin said.

“[Axios] actually published a story amplifying and pushing the perspective of an activist who compared removing sexual content and radical gender identity from K-3rd grade public school classrooms with Nazi Germany,” he said. “Dishonest media activism at its very worst.”

Indeed, last week, an activist effort to overturn the Florida parental rights law failed in court under a new settlement. The governor’s office noted that the settlement “ensures that the law will remain in effect.”

“This isn’t news. This is propaganda, and it has nothing to do with the Parental Rights in Education Act,” said Jeremy Redfern, the press secretary for DeSantis. “Equating parental rights with the Holocaust is absurd and disrespectful.”

“It is beyond absurd to equate Florida’s parental rights law, which prohibits instruction in gender ideology and age-inappropriate materials, to the Holocaust,” said Christina Pushaw, a member of DeSantis’ administration, in reaction to the Axios report.

“Any historian who makes such claims makes a mockery of his profession,” Pushaw said.

Axios went on to support the comparison, saying other “critics” have made the same comparison to Nazi Germany – which Axios said had arrested “100,000 queer people,” including in the years after World War II.

Media spins DeSantis legal victory upholding parental rights law as a loss

As the bill explicitly stated in its passed form, the restrictions applied to “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity [in] kindergarten through grade 3 or in a matter that is not age-appropriate.”