“The state has become an unlikely laboratory for right-wing policy, pushed by a governor with presidential ambitions, noted the New York Times. Instead, much of the attention has gone to the presidential ambitions of DeSantis, an unabashed culture warrior.
In trying to understand why a purple state like Florida finds itself in the current predicament, very little has been said about the state’s long history as America’s breeding ground for toxic anti-gay politics and how this history may have informed the parental rights bill. The controversy in Florida has also gone national with similar bills being considered by the legislatures of Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee. In retaliation, Florida’s legislature, acting on orders from DeSantis, revoked a law that for decades had allowed Disney to operate its businesses in Florida with minimal intervention from local authorities. Disney officials have publicly opposed the new law, arguing that “it could be used to unfairly target gay, lesbian, non-binary and transgender kinds and families,” and called for the courts to invalidate it. Since becoming law, the controversy over Florida’s parental rights bill has metastasized by pitting DeSantis against the Walt Disney Corporation, one of Florida’s largest private employers.