Surfside—Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the HB 529 'moment of silence in public schools' bill into law at The Shul of Bal Harbour on Monday, allowing children K-12 to pray in school.
Gov. DeSantis told synagogue attendees that he believes it is “important to be able to provide each student the ability at every day pray as they see fit the idea that you can just push God out of every institution and be successful,” adding that the Founding Fathers would not have approved of taking prayer out of schools.
“I'm sorry I founding fathers did not believe that, and so we have an opportunity here to really protect the religious freedom of everybody who's going to school K through 12 in the state of Florida,” stated Gov. DeSantis.
The event almost didn’t happen and was delayed a few hours as DeSantis’ plane was diverted due to the severe weather that passed through South Florida shortly before his noon event was supposed to take place.
Prior to signing the bill, DeSantis told the story of when he and his wife Casey traveled to Israel, the couple bottle up some water from the Sea of Galilee to use to baptize their future children.
On a personal note, how did they get the water past Israeli police and airport security? I once tried boarding a flight out of Tel Aviv with a stone I “found” at the ancient site of Megiddo, and was thoroughly searched by Israels’ Mossad-looking secret security detail for 2 hours. The stone never made it on the plane.
In attendance: Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez, Sen. Dennis Baxley, Reps. Randy Fine and Mike Caruso, and Bal Harbour Mayor Gabriel Grossman.
