The Arizona House and Senate voted to advance Senate Bill 1346, which amends an existing 30-year-old law regarding AIDS instruction by repealing homophobic provisions, including that no course study may present “homosexuality as a positive alternative life-style.”
Gov. Doug Ducey (R-Ariz.) swiftly signed the bipartisan bill after the Senate’s vote, calling it a “common sense solution.”
The 1991 law, which also prohibited HIV and AIDS instruction that “suggests that some methods of sex are safe methods of homosexual sex,” was challenged in a lawsuit filed last month on behalf of LGBT advocacy group Equality Arizona.
The suit alleged the law discriminated against LGBT youth and “communicates to teachers and students that there is something so undesirable, shameful, or controversial about homosexuality that any positive portrayals of LGBT people or same-sex relationships must be explicitly barred.”
After nearly three decades of this law placing stigma on LGBT community, the repeal sends a signal to every student, teacher, and family in Arizona that they are welcome in schools.
Congrats!!!
Yay! They are the second state to elect an out LGBT person as USA Senator also (Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat, in 2018. Things are changing in the Grand Canyon State!
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