Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis brushed aside his ongoing imbroglio with Disney in his state, instead framing the issue as keeping gender ideology out of schools and protecting the "innocence of our children."
DeSantis made the comments on Monday night in a town hall with Newsmax in Urbandale, Iowa.
"Disney came after us," DeSantis said.
"We had legislation to protect kids and parents from having sexualized curriculum in elementary school," DeSantis told Newsmax. "It is wrong to teach a kindergartner that they were born in the wrong body or that their gender is a choice. You should not have that in schools."
DeSantis said he didn't care that the left or the media or even Disney didn't like it.
"We need to draw a line in the sand when it comes to the innocence of our children," DeSantis said. "I am not going to lay down if they're coming after our kids. This is personal to us.
"I am standing with our kids."
During a later segment, DeSantis again addressed education from a national perspective if he were to become president. Keep critical race theory and gender ideology out of American schools, he said.
"If we allow our schools to be captured by woke ideology, we are gonna consign the next generation of Americans to failure and this country is not going to succeed," he said. "Our mantra in Florida has been to educate, not indoctrinate."
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