Matt Gaetz says school prayer bill will create “more empathy” as he cruelly mocks LGBTQ+ people

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) told a local news station in Florida that his “National Prayer in School Act” is necessary to build “empathy and kindness” while also making fun of LGBTQ+ people and continuing to call them “degenerate.”

Students and teachers are already allowed to pray in schools following several court rulings, but school officials aren’t allowed to lead students in prayer and students can’t pray in a way that disrupts classroom activities. Gaetz’s bill, he says, would lift those restrictions and require teachers to create “time for students to pray” in class.

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“I think that in my own experiences and the experiences I’ve observed, prayer creates a sense that there is something bigger than one’s self and it draws people into more empathy and kindness,” Gaetz told WEAR-TV. He said that it would fight “degenerate content” in schools – similar phrasing to what he used last week when referring to “degenerate LGBT… content.”

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“The far-left gender ideology and divisive race ideology that we’ve seen in other parts of the country has really permeated the school system,” Gaetz said, before mocking LGBTQ+ people. “I think that more space for prayer for students in schools is probably better than creating more space for, you know, the next pansexual poetry hour in Portland.”

Gaetz announced the bill first to Tucker Carlson’s far-right website Daily Caller, saying that it would somehow stop “degenerate LGBT and anti-White propaganda.”

Writer Hemant Mehta notes that, while praying in school is already legal, Gaetz’s bill will “permit religious coercion from teachers, administrators, and students.” The bill’s text says that people can sue for any attempt to stop them from praying in schools, no matter how disruptive or coercive they are.

Mehta says that this would allow teachers to lead their classes in prayer and coaches to force athletes to participate in prayers as a condition of being on the team, both of which are currently unconstitutional.

Gaetz isn’t the first Republican House member this year to call LGBTQ+ people degenerates, a word that comes from a Latin word that means “to be inferior to one’s ancestors” and is associated with the Third Reich. In May, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) complained about North Face and other companies advertising to LGBTQ+ people.

“How many times do we have to explain to the woke marketing departments at these disgusting companies that America is not a nation of degenerates?” she tweeted.