On the Thursday night edition of his MSNBC show All In, host Chris Hayes called out the hypocrisy of right-wing “parental rights” supporters during a segment on soon-to-be 2024 GOP Presidential race entrant and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R)’s signing of several cruel anti-LGBTQ+/anti-trans bills into law on Wednesday (which was also International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT)), including a ban on gender-affirming care for minors and significant restrictions for adults that is also a legalized kidnapping bill (SB254).
These hypocritical right-wing “parental rights”extremistswere all for them when it was used to oppose mask mandates and other COVID mitigation measures in schools, but want to invalidate the parental rights of LGBTQ+ people and their supporters by passing discriminatory anti-LGBTQ+ laws banning LGBTQ+ expression (especially in schools) and gender-affirming care for trans minors (and also for adults in certain cases).
Mason Bissada at The Wrap, via Yahoo! News:
Chris Hayes had blunt words for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis following the enactment of a draconian statewide ban on on gender-affirming care for trans minors. “It’s none of your… goddamn business,” the MSNBC host said.
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“Telling parents how they can or cannot raise their own children is among the most authoritarian things a government can do,”Hayes said after showcasing videos of DeSantis describing pandemic measures such as mask mandates in similar terms.
Hayes then brought up DeSantis’ book, the ironically titled “The Courage to Be Free.”
“To me, that is what ‘The Courage to Be Free’ means,” Hayes said. “Freedom means that in my household, our family decides what kind of healthcare our child does or does not get. Not Ron DeSantis, not the Republican party. But that is no longer the case in Florida.”
“You may not like it, but you know what? It’s none of your — excuse me — goddamn business,” Hayes also said while addressing the governor and likely Republican presidential candidate.
Hayes explained on Twitter:
Erin Reed comes in the clutch on calling out the “parental rights” extremists:
David Badash at The New Civil Rights Movement:
For nearly eight minutes Thursday evening, Hayes explained to viewers how DeSantis peddles fake claims about freedom, while enacting some the most hypocritically “authoritarian” and “dystopian” laws in the country.
Hayes says that “in Ron DeSantis’ Florida, the state will decide what books your child can or cannot leave their school library by threatening teachers and librarians with time in prison if they do not comply with vague laws about instruction on race, gender and sexuality. The state will decide what women can do with their own bodies by banning abortion at six weeks. Of course, that is for all intents and purposes a complete abortion ban, which means that Ron DeSantis and the Republican Party of Florida control the bodies of every Floridian who can get pregnant. It’s their body not yours. The state will also decide how you can dress in public, which costumes you can wear. By enacting what is essentially a full ban on drag performances that will also likely restrict Pride events.”
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“Now the sick irony here the one that I just can’t get over and really kind of sticks with me is that the right-wing movement that gave us this new law signed yesterday, is the very same group of people that screamed about parental rights for years, amidst the pandemic. ‘I get to say whether my kid wears a mask, I get to say whether my kid gets vaccinated. I get to say whether my kid goes to school.’ And Ron DeSantis was the public face of that movement.”
Hayes played a clip of DeSantis during the height of the coronavirus pandemic saying, President Biden “wants to have the government force kindergarteners to wear masks in school. He doesn’t believe the parents should have a say in that. He thinks that should be a decision for the government. Well, I can tell you in Florida the parents are going to be the ones in charge of that decision. Joe Biden suggests that if you don’t do lock down policies, then you should quote get out of the way, but let me tell you this: If you’re coming after the rights of parents and Florida, I’m standing in your way. I’m not going to let you get away with it.”
“What a tough guy,” Hayes responds, mocking the Florida governor. “You see all that swagger? He’s gonna stand in your way. If you’re coming after parental rights, if you try to tell a parent what they can do with their kids. That very same wing of the Republican Party embodied by Ron DeSantis and the government of the state of Florida, has now demanded and produced a situation in which the government, that guy you saw there with a tough guy swagger about freedom, is going to decide if your child who lives in your home, that you gave birth to or raised, that you love, your kid, what kind of care they can get. He decides. Care that, to be clear, the American Academy of Pediatrics supports and recommends.”
“Think about what this means,” Hayes asks of viewers. “Right now as I’m speaking to you, there are parents and families in Florida that have decided, as a family, as parents, along with their doctors, that this health care, gender-affirming care, is the best care for their kids. You may not like it, but you know what? It’s none of your, excuse me, goddamn business. To me, that is what the courage to be free means. Freedom means that in my household, our family decides what kind of health care our child does or does not get. Not Ron DeSantis. Not the Republican Party. That is no longer the case in Florida.”
Guess who are the ones jeopardizing parental rights? It’s right-wingers who scream “parental rights” at the top of their lungs as a cudgel to attack people who don’t line up with their vision of society, such as LGBTQ+ people (esp. trans and gender nonconforming people).
From the 05.18.2023 edition of MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes: