When I think of Disney, I think of Disneyworld in Florida. I think of Orlando.
But Disney is not Florida. It’s headquartered in Burbank, CA, and its spirit is Hollywood, not Orlando. Disney is a multi-media behemoth involved in movie production, streaming, and other entertainment.
It’s also run by liars who claim that the Florida Parents Rights In Education law just signed by Governor Ron DeSantis is the “Don’t Say Gay” law that discriminates against LGBTQ++++.
It’s all a lie. Read the Bill. There is nothing about it that even remotely could be construed as anti-anyone, it’s a child protection and parental rights law. The law sets limits on what schools can do in terms of medical and psychological treatment without parental knowledge and consent:
2. A school district may not adopt procedures or student support forms that prohibit school district personnel from notifying a parent about his or her student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being, or a change in related services or monitoring, or that encourage or have the effect of encouraging a student to withhold from a parent such information. School district personnel may not discourage or prohibit parental notification of and involvement in critical decisions affecting a student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being. This subparagraph does not prohibit a school district from adopting procedures that permit school personnel to withhold such information from a parent if a reasonably prudent person would believe that disclosure would result in abuse, abandonment, or neglect, as those terms are defined in s. 39.01.
Here’s the supposedly “Don’t Say Gay” provision:
3. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
In our post-truth world, people opposing the law have called it something it’s not, and the false terminology permeates the media:
It’s all a lie.
Yet Disney thinks it runs Florida, not Floridians, and it can get its way with the law. It has come out with a statement demanding the Parental Rights law be revoked, and pledging to pressure the legislature into doing that (emphasis added):
“Florida’s HB 1557, also known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, should never have passed and should never have been signed into law. Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that. We are dedicated to standing up for the rights and safety of LGBTQ+ members of the Disney family, as well as the LGBTQ+ community in Florida and across the country.”
DeSantis properly rejected Disney’s bullying:
“For them to say that they’re going to work to repeal substantive protections for parents, as a company that’s supposedly marketing its services to parents with young children, I think they crossed the line.”He then explained how Democracy is supposed to work.“This state is governed by the interests of the people of the state of Florida. It is not based on the demands of California corporate executives. They do not run this state. They do not control this state.”The governor continued, “I also thought it was interesting, I talked to the Speaker of the [Florida] House yesterday afternoon, and he said Disney never called him when they were putting this [bill] through the house. They [Disney] didn’t seem to have a problem with it when it was going through. If this was such an affront, why weren’t they speaking up at the outset?
DeSantis called out Disney’s corporate hypocritical complicity in ignoring the crimes of the Chinese government:
“If we would have put in the bill that you were not allowed to have curriculum that discussed the oppression of the Uyghurs in China, Disney would have endorsed that in a second. And that’s the hypocrisy of this. And we’re going to make sure we are fighting back when parents are threatening our parents and threatening our kids.”
Ron DeSantis has his finger on the pulse of the parents movement like no one else. He understands that the civil rights issue of our time is whether children belong to their parents or to whatever social justice warrior happens to be in a public elementary school classroom at any given moment.
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