Michael Emanuel Rajner's comment before the Broward County School Board relating to homophobic statements

Michael Emanuel Rajner

Video from my public comment before the Broward County School Board relating to homophobic statements by a State Representative serving on the K-12 Education Subcommittee. A special thank you for 2 amazing lesbians who are nurturing a child in a home with 2 mommies who let me share your story that serves as a model of a loving family and home.
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South Florida LGBT Community speaks at Broward County School Board meeting to publicly respond to bigoted and homophobic statements made by State Rep. Dennis Baxley of Ocala, Florida.

In a K-12 Subcommittee meeting of the Florida House of Representatives Committee on Education, Representative Baxley stated a home with 2 mommies is a dysfunctional structure and no different than a home filled with commercial sex work, drug and alcohol abuse and violence.

Equality Florida Statement on Outrageous Comments by Representative Baxley Disparaging LGBT Families 

“We hope Representative Baxley has the decency to apologize for his comments disparaging gay parents and our children.  More than that, we invite Representative Baxley to educate himself, talk with us and actually meet our families. We are a diverse state and no elected official can fulfill their oath of office if they only respect and care about the people and families that look just like their own,” said Nadine Smith, CEO of Equality Florida.

“The entire child welfare community, every credible agency and all research, is unanimous in recognizing that gay parents are equally capable of of raising children and that our kids do just as well as their classmates.”

Equality Florida has requested a meeting with Representative Baxley after his comments on Tuesday, October 8 in the House, K-12 Subcommittee disparaging LGBT parents, comparing them to abusive parents and equating having same-sex parents with alcoholism. 

Below is the text of his statement:

"It's easy to say parents need to get involved, but half these kids are raising themselves; they don't have any parents that are functional.  How can we address that?  I know it's scope and I know it's hard, but you're probably their only hope.  I mean I sat an hour and a half with a teacher telling me, well this child has got serial men coming through the house, this one has two mommy's, this one has abusive father whose home, this has alcoholism, this one has drug abuse.  It was a casualty warfare event to hear - just her classroom - how many dysfunctional, atypical - to me - uh, structures are in the way of a kid having a chance to learn." Representative Dennis Baxley

Michael Emanuel Rajner