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Straight time
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Florida Rep. Randy Fine tweets threatening message to President Biden after Texas school shooting
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The view from above: Hevia had to serve out the rest of her sentence in the Seminole County Jail
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STRAIGHT TIME
Kaylin Hevia enrolled in a drug rehab program in lieu of jail time. Then they kicked her out for being gay
BY ERIC TEGHETOFF
On Feb. 21, 2022, Kaylin Hevia was near the 10-month mark of her yearlong, court-ordered treatment in a drug rehab program when managers of the program called her into their office. It was a Monday. The facility managers told her they knew about her relationship with another woman in the program. Hevia denied it at first, but relented when the other woman was brought into the room.
Technically, the 29-year-old had broken the rehab facility’s “no touching” rule. But for leadership at the center, her biggest infraction had been lying about kissing another woman. She was kicked out of the program that night and put on a bus to Orlando. Hevia’s now in a Seminole County jail — enrollment in the rehab was a mandatory condition of her probation.
The drug treatment program she was in is called Teen Challenge; it’s a Christian rehabilitation organization with more than a thousand centers across the country for both minors and adults. Teen Challenge and its supporters laud the program’s successes in breaking people of their drug addictions. But it’s come under increased scrutiny in recent years as former participants allege harsh treatment in the program.
Hevia says her sexual orientation was a topic revisited over and over again during her treatment at the Southeast Florida Women’s Rehab in Davie, a Teen Challenge facility outside Miami. She says the facility’s executive director, Pastor Rick Fernandez, advised her to find help for her sexuality.
After getting kicked out of the program, Hevia appeared in court April 6 for breaking the terms of her probation. At the hearing, administration for the Southeast Florida Women’s Rehab denied that Hevia’s sexual orientation played any role in her dismissal. Judge Melissa Souto agreed, sentencing Hevia to 120 days in jail for violating the program’s notouching rule.
The state attorney’s office for the 18th judicial district in Seminole County released a statement noting Hevia had signed a plea deal 19 days before she left the Davie facility in which charges against her would be dropped if she completed the drug program. The statement also claimed the narrative that Hevia was dismissed for her sexual orientation was “factually incorrect and we believe misleading.”
But in courtroom before the judge’s ruling, Hevia’s attorney, Natasha Ghica, asked Fernandez about his program’s acceptance of gay people.
Fernandez elaborated when pressed on the question again. “We accept them with the understanding that they’re not going to push their agenda — that they’re coming for help. Not to push their agenda, to want to get in a relationship.” [continued on page 15]
BY JIM TURNER AND TOM URBAN, NSF
In the wake of last Tuesday’s school shooting in Texas, Democratic lawmakers in Florida called on their Republican colleagues to use time remaining in a special legislative session on property insurance to address firearm-related measures such as imposing universal background checks on gun buyers. House leaders offered prayers as a response to the latest series of mass shootings, while some Republicans maintained opposition to any efforts to restrict access to firearms.
Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican from the Palm Bay area of Brevard County, on Wednesday told reporters it was “completely inappropriate” for President Joe Biden to “politicize the situation,” referring to the shooting in Uvalde in which 19 children and two adults died.
Biden Tuesday night called for tougher gun controls and for Americans to stand up to powerful gun lobbyists.
Fine’s response to Biden’s remarks raised eyebrows.
“I have news for the embarrassment that claims to be our President — try to take our guns and you’ll learn why the Second Amendment was written in the first place,” Fine tweeted.
Rep. Anthony Sabatini, a Howey-in-the-Hills Republican who is running for Congress, used the massacre at an elementary school to continue his push for a “constitutional carry” proposal, which would allow people to carry concealed weapons without first getting a license from the state.
“Florida must pass Constitutional Carry now, [number] 1 fastest way to secure our public spaces and institutions. Also, re-open the mental asylums that liberals closed in the 1970s and get these psychos out of society ASAP. Make the Edu-crats secure our schools for once!” Sabatini tweeted.
[continued on page 15]
NEWS
Noli me tangere: Judge Melissa Souto sentenced Hevia to 120 days for violating a ‘no-touching’ rule
COURTESY PHOTO
In response to an interview request, a Teen Challenge spokesperson said neither the organization nor Fernandez have any comment on Hevia’s case.
Hevia was arrested in Oviedo for possession of Xanax and driving with a suspended license in February 2021 and ordered into a drug program. When it came to choosing the program, Hevia says she went with the one that would quickly get her out of jail. She says the wait for some programs can be two to four months, during which time she’d have to stay locked up. Teen Challenge was able to accept her within a week.
Hevia had been in a Teen Challenge program before, back in 2016 at its Fort Myers facility. She says the Davie rehab where she was heading for her second stint had a reputation for being among the strictest in the state.
Other Teen Challenge centers have this reputation, too. Last year, Rachel Aviv wrote an exposé for the New Yorker magazine on the organization, calling it a “shadow penal system for struggling kids.” Aviv’s piece focused on Teen Challenge’s Lakeland Girls Academy.
That facility decided to close its doors in March after ongoing scrutiny over the 2020 death of a 17-year-old girl in the program. Under Florida statute, substance abuse facilities associated with religious nonprofits, including Teen Challenge, are exempt from state licensing and oversight for “all services which are solely religious, spiritual, or ecclesiastical in nature.” The Florida Department of Children and Families can, however, investigate when there are allegations of neglect or abuse.
The New Yorker article includes accounts from a woman who was told by the Lakeland directors that being gay was a “detestable sin” as well as girls across the country who were sent to the centers because their parents were worried they were gay.
Hevia says the managers considered this an act of rebellion and gave her literature on sexuality. She says one of the books was Restoring Sexual Identity: Hope for Women Who Struggle With Same-Sex Attraction by Anne Paulk. The author identifies herself as an ex-lesbian. She was a vocal part of now-defunct Exodus International, an Orlando-based Christian organization that promoted conversion therapy. That practice is based on the idea that a person’s sexual orientation can be changed through intense, sometimes dangerous, methods. Studies have found it can lead to higher rates of depression, anxiety and even suicide, according to the American Medical Association.
In her 2003 book, Paulk argued that sexual orientation is not biological, but the result of other factors such as childhood trauma, including sexual abuse, or “atypical childhood play patterns.”
She offers advice if someone suspects their co-worker is a lesbian: “First, remember that homosexuality at its root is not sexual. Instead, it is an ineffective coping mechanism — a false way to love and nurture oneself. … What she needs more than anything is a relationship with Jesus Christ and the nurture that comes from God alone.”
The author also writes that changing one’s sexual orientation can be easier than overcoming drug or alcohol addiction.
Paulk, at the time she wrote this book, was married to John Paulk, who was also part of the “ex-gay” movement and former board chair of Exodus International. The couple divorced in 2013 and John renounced conversion therapy. He was part of the 2021 Netflix documentary Pray Away, about Exodus International and its 37-year history promoting the practice. (Former Exodus International president Alan Chambers denounced conversion therapy in 2013, apologized for promoting it, and shut down the organization.)
Anne Paulk doubled down on praying away the gay, though. She is now executive director of the Restored Hope Network, an Oregon-based organization that still promotes conversion therapy.
Hevia said Pastor Fernandez urged her to reconsider her sexual orientation as she left the program. “He asked me, ‘Do you ever want to get married and have kids the right way?’”
At her April 6 hearing, Hevia was offered the chance to complete her drug treatment at another facility. She opted instead to finish her jail sentence. At that point, she had already served 30 days.
“I felt that accepting probation and being put into another program would hurt me more than help me,” Hevia wrote in an email to Orlando Weekly.
Hevia is appealing her case, although it won’t be heard while she’s still in jail. She’s scheduled for release on June 3. Ghica, her attorney, says they’re appealing the decision because the ruling sets a “problematic precedent.”
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During Wednesday’s floor session, other House members were more restrained.
Rep. Dana Trabulsy, who delivered the opening prayer, said lawmakers are “heartbroken yet again in the wake of another mass shooting.”
“Lord, words of outrage are not enough to express our hatred of this evil that was done to children who simply went to school yesterday,” Trabulsy, R-Fort Pierce, said. “Lord, we pray that you guide us to turn ourselves and our hearts and minds to those that are suffering, including our friends here in this chamber, who are replaying the trauma of the past from Parkland and Pulse.”
Calling for a moment of silence, House Speaker Chris Sprowls noted that “we’ve witnessed some horrible murders” since the Florida Legislature’s mid-April special session on congressional redistricting.
Mass shootings occurred on May 14 at a Tops Market in Buffalo, New York, and at the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, California, on May 15.
“I know that we all see the faces of our own loved ones and the faces that we saw yesterday and unspeakable grief,” Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, said. “And throughout the course of these other tragedies, our hearts are with these communities as they continue to suffer. We know all too well what it looks like for a community to be suffering, the way that they are suffering.”
The Pulse nightclub in Orlando was the scene of a massacre in June 2016 where 49 people were killed and another 53 individuals were wounded.
In February 2018, a former student opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, killing 14 students and three faculty members.
Following the Parkland shootings, Florida lawmakers quickly enacted a gun-control proposal that raised the minimum age from 18 to 21 to purchase rifles and other long guns.
The 2018 measure, signed by former Gov. Rick Scott, also imposed a three-day waiting period for buying long guns, banned so-called bump stocks and established what is known as a “red flag” system, which allows law-enforcement agencies to seize firearms from people who may pose a threat to themselves or others.
At the time, lawmakers tabled proposals backed by gun-rights groups, including a measure that would allow people with concealed-weapons licenses to carry guns at churches and other religious institutions that share property with schools. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a similar bill into law last year. The governor, who is running for re-election this year, has said he expects to sign a constitutional carry proposal before he leaves office.
Democrats expressed concern about that plan, and pledged to continue to push for gun-related regulations including universal background checks, safe storage laws, ID checks on ammunition purchases, restrictions on large capacity magazines and assault weapons, and expanded “red flag” mental health programs. The Republican-controlled Legislature has failed to advance such proposals in recent years.
“We could do all of these things, and not touch a single legally owned firearm by a responsible gun owner. It is time to have that conversation in Florida and for America,” House Minority Leader-designate Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, said.
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