FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 21, 2021
PHOENIX – Representative César Chávez, Chairman of the Arizona LGBTQ Legislative Caucus, today thanked Governor Ducey for his veto on Tuesday of the discriminatory anti-LGBTQ Senate Bill 1456, which passed the House on a party-line vote last week. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Nancy Barto, would have expand the requirement parents of students to opt-in to sex education curriculum to any instruction involving gender identity, gender expression or sexuality. In effect, the bill would have re-instated Arizona's discriminatory "No Promo Homo" law – rescinded by the Legislature and Ducey in 2019 – which prevented discussion of HIV-AIDS prevention and led to bullying and stigmatizing of LGBTQ students.
"I want to thank the LGBTQ community, my fellow caucus members and our many allies for effectively using your voices to point out the many flaws in this bill, and how it would be used as a weapon to once again silence, erase and marginalize our voices. And I want to thank Governor Ducey for hearing those voices and doing the right thing," said Chávez, D-Phoenix. "It is important for me to reiterate that parents have and still have a choice in regard to age-appropriate comprehensive sex education, which the Governor reaffirmed with his executive order. However, the intent of this bill was to legislate far past that and create a silo which deemed gender identity, expression and sexual orientation as somehow immoral. That is just wrong and would have put caused students long-term harm."
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