As part of its campaign to urge Disney to speak out against the hateful “Don’t Say Gay” legislation now pending in the Florida legislature, AHF will lead simultaneous rallies urging the Walt Disney Company, which has its famous Walt Disney World in Orlando, the heart of the Sunshine State, on Thursday, March 3 at 10:00 am ET. in ORLANDO, FL and at 10:00 am PT in BURBANK, CA, home of Disney’s world corporate headquarters. (Photo: Business Wire)
Just like that, tyranny has descended on Florida.
The state legislature, supported by Gov. Ron DeSantis, voted to repeal the “special independent district” that Disney enjoyed for half a century.
This is a sign, we are told, of the advent of an American authoritarianism that brooks no dissent: Disney criticizes a measure supported by the Florida Republican Party, the so-called Don’t Say Gay bill, and immediately makes himself a target.
However, there is a reason this fight escalated to this point. Disney was the aggressor in the battle over the education bill, lied about it and vowed to work to repeal it.
Although the bill had nothing to do with Disney at all, nothing to do with its product, its business model, or its employees. The company was forced to take its stand due to pressure from a conscious segment of its employees and from progressives abroad.
Disney’s case against the bill was based on the libel that the legislation somehow threatened gay or trans people. In fact, the law simply seeks to exclude the teaching of inappropriate material to young children in the classroom, a goal that would once have been considered completely banal.
“Classroom instruction,” the law says, “by school personnel or third parties about sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur from kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not appropriate for the age or development of students according to state standards. ”
Based on that, Disney went to mattresses. And he did it, not to serve his shareholders, improve his profitability, protect his intellectual property, or align himself with his vast and politically diverse customer base.
Remarkably, this was an iconic American brand that became a floating weapon of awakened cultural politics in response to the social and political influence of a small number of vocal progressives.
Like so many companies before it, Disney calculated the risk/reward of gratuitously waging a leftist political and cultural struggle and saw everything as reward, not risk. The Florida legislature decided to convince him that it was wrong.
Republicans have fantasized about taking revenge on the corporations awakened earlier, but to no avail. Disney’s problem is that he had a glaring vulnerability in the form of an arrangement that could easily be presented as a special favor.
The provisions allowing Disney to govern itself in its special independent district are so broad that one analyst refers to the so-called Reedy Creek Improvement District as “the Vatican with mouse ears.”
“Never before or since has such extravagant ownership been granted to a private corporation,” notes Florida writer Carl Hiaasen in his book “Team Rodent.” “Disney owns its own utilities. Manage your own planning and zoning. It writes its own building codes and employs its own inspectors. It maintains its own fire department. It even has the authority to collect taxes.”
For good measure, you can build your own airport and nuclear power plant.
Now, all of that is scheduled to be gone within a year. Obviously, it is not good practice for the government to retaliate against a company, even if it enjoys special status.
However, this fight could have welcome effects if it convinces Disney that it made a mistake by allowing itself to be bullied and cajoled into becoming a fighter in the culture war, or if it convinces other corporations that there is a potential price to pay. join awakened mobs.
Republicans don’t want corporations to become tools to advance their agenda; they just want them to get out of the culture wars and focus, once again, on their businesses, a result that would lower the temperature in the country’s cultural struggles at least a little.
Ideally, Disney and Florida L
Photo courtesy of Rich Lowry
the legislature crafts a renewal of the company’s special district before it expires, and the mouse house, and other corporations seduced into becoming de facto leftist lobbyists, resolve to stick to their core competency and mission.
Rich Lowry is editor of National Review.
Twitter, @RichLowry
Reference-www.sltrib.com