Florida Governor DeSantis signed several terrific bills this week. Yesterday, the Nation’s Governor signed what I believe to be the country’s first “anti-grooming” bill. Corporate media ignored the story, of course, so I’ll cite the Florida Daily, which ran the article under the headline, “DeSantis Signs Five Pieces of Legislation to Protect Children from Predatory Grooming, Sexual Offenses.”
DeSantis signed all five of these terrific bills into law yesterday:
- HB 1545 protects children from grooming and other sexual offenses.
- HB 1131 establishes a grant program to create online sting operations targeting sexual predators.
- HB 1235 creates stricter guidelines for registering sex offenders.
- SB 1224 strengthens the Guardian ad Litem Office and implements new training requirements to ensure law enforcement properly assesses a domestic violence situation involving kids.
- HB 305 expands evidence that can be presented to a jury in sex-abuse cases where the victim is a minor and increases penalties on those who take part in sex trafficking of minors.
The most controversial of those five was the anti-grooming bill, which for some reason transexuals think targets them, even though transsexuals are mentioned nowhere in the new law. The law criminalizes sexualized communications harmful to minors. Here’s the operative language, or you can click this link to read it for yourself:
An adult who engages in a pattern of communication to a minor that includes explicit and detailed verbal descriptions or narrative accounts of sexual activity, sexual conduct, or sexual excitement and that is harmful to minors commits a felony of the third degree.
The law clearly applies regardless of anyone’s sexual orientation, unless you think transsexuals are more likely to run afoul of the new crime. Unlike previous versions of this bill, teachers are not excluded. Nor are drag story hours.
