Maher rejects liberal 'Don't Say Gay' uproar over Florida bill: Maybe young kids shouldn't think about sex

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"Real Time" host Bill Maher pushed back at the liberal "Don't Say Gay" uproar of a Florida education reform bill that's been condemned by Democrats and the media. 

"I guess it's a reaction to Republicans who feel that there's too much talk in lower grades -- I think it's only, they're talking about kindergarten to third grade – so we're talking about very young kids who, you know, as always with this stuff, you know, it's not like there's no kernel of truth in that maybe kids that young shouldn't be thinking about sex at all," Maher said during the "Overtime" segment on Friday. 

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"It's not like you're not allowed to literally not say gay, but they just don't want teachers talking about it. They think it's the province of parents," Maher told the panel. 

Bill Maher appears on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on Sept. 15, 2021.  (Getty Images)

While New York Times columnist Frank Bruni dismissed the bill as a "culture war that's meant to solve cheap, easy points rather than really solving America's problems," Newsweek deputy opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon disagreed, insisting the reform effort is focused on parents' rights. 

"Do we know that this was an enormous problem, pervasive in Florida schools?" Bruni asked Ungar-Sargon. "This reeks to me of something that happened on a few occasions and has been blown into something."

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‘Something else’ going on

"Well, I don't know about that," Maher pushed back. "The same thing with the race -- with the CRT [critical race theory] thing. I feel like it's disingenuous when the liberals say, you know, 'We just want to teach history.' And like … most reasonable people are not against realistically teaching history. It's not like you can't mention slavery. They're telling you about something else that is going on.

"I've read too many reports, too many first-person reports from teachers who say, 'I can't go on teaching like this because this is insanity what I'm doing in this classroom, separating kids by race and oppressors and non-oppressors. And they're little kids. It is going on," Maher said. 

WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE

The HBO star went on to read part of the officially named Parental Rights in Education bill, which "would require districts to adopt procedures for notifying a student's parent if there is a change in the student's services or monitoring related to the student's mental, emotional or physical health or well-being." 

‘A political winner’

"I think in California, it's the school [that] has more of those rights than the parent," Maher said. "That's not how everybody feels out here. It's like we need to protect the student from the parents with the school."

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"That's a political winner," Bruni said sarcastically. 

"Well, you should live out here for a while. You'll see some crazy s---," Maher told the Times columnist. "And yet, as I always say, the climate is a disaster and the weather is delightful."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis addresses a joint session of a legislative session, Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, in Tallahassee, Florida. (Associated Press)

The GOP-backed bill garnered national attention for being derided by progressives as being anti-LGBTQ with accusations that the bill forbids any discussion pertaining to being gay in schools. 

DeSantis expected to sign

Left-wing critics, including members of the media, have referred to the legislation as the "Don't Say Gay" bill even though such language is absent from the bill itself. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign it into law. 

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The bill states, "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."

The legislation additionally requires schools to inform parents "if there is a change in the student's services or monitoring related to the student's mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being and the school's ability to provide a safe and supportive learning environment for the student" and requires parent approval before children from kindergarten through third grade participate in a "well-being questionnaire or health screening" and that parents have the option to opt their children out across all age groups.