‘BEYOND THE PALE’

Ex-Florida Rep Who Penned ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Is Jailed on Fraud Charges

Joe Harding, a former state congressman who resigned in December after his indictment, was sentenced to four months in prison.

A federal judge on Thursday sentenced Joe Harding, a former Florida state representative made infamous by his authorship of the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, to four months behind bars after he pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining a $150,000 COVID-19 relief loan. Harding, 36, will also be subject to two years of supervised release and a $300 fine following his prison sentence. “The theft of any amount of taxpayer funds is inexcusable,” Jason Coody, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Florida, said in a press release. “However, the defendant’s deceptive acts of diverting emergency financial assistance from small businesses during the pandemic is simply beyond the pale.” Harding resigned from the state Legislature in December, shortly after he was indicted on charges of wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements. Having just begun his second term, he’d already gained national notoriety as the sponsor of the Parental Rights in Education Act, dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which prohibits the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in grade school classrooms.