Video appears to show lawmaker criticizing Common Core

A video posted on Youtube appears to show a Florida lawmaker making some controversial statements that are gaining national attention.

The footage appears to feature Representative Charles Van Zant saying Common Core pushes students towards homosexuality.

“They are promoting, as hard as they can, any youth that is interested in the LGBT agenda,” the lawmaker appears to have said in the video.

The video was posted by a group called Think Progress.

Van Zant told our partner Action News Monday night that he spoke at a conference in Orlando earlier in the year, but was not aware of the claims Think Progress was making.  He said he wanted to review the claims before commenting further.

“These people, that will now receive $220 million from the state of Florida unless this is stopped, will promoted double-mindedness in state education and attract every one of your children to become as homosexual as they possibly can,” he appears to have said.

The video showed him apparently saying the American Institute of Research, or AIR, is responsible for pushing the homosexual agenda.  The Florida Department of Education hired AIR to make a new test based on Common Core Standards.

Van Zant seems to have a problem with one of AIR’s LGBTQI2-S program.

“Click the link to what they are doing with youth, and you will see what their agenda really is,” he apparently said.

AIR’s website describes the LGBTQI2-S  Learning Community as an “opportunity for individuals and organizations in the behavioral health, child welfare, juvenile justice, and education systems to learn about strategies for delivering services that can enhance the well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, or two-spirit (LGBTQI2-S) youth and their families.”

WOKV is working to contact Van Zant for confirmation that he really did make the previous statements in the Think Progress video.