The feud between The Walt Disney Co. and Florida Gov. and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis continued Monday, when the governor asked a federal court to dismiss the entertainment giant’s lawsuit against him, which claims its actions were aimed at removing the company’s oversight of Reedy Creek. Improvement District, following Disney’s vocal opposition to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, was politically motivated and violated the company’s free speech rights.
According to ABC Newspart of The Walt Disney Co., Florida’s governor hopes the federal court will dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that he is entitled to immunity from charges filed in the lawsuit.
DeSantis’ lawyers wrote that he “is entitled to legislative immunity, which protects the actions of governors and legislators in proposing, formulating and passing legislation.”
The Disney-DeSantis feud has been going on for a while and will likely take years to resolve. The start came when DeSantis passed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida, which Disney spoke out against.
The feud continued as DeSantis then pushed finish Disney’s oversight of the Reedy Creek Improvement District with his own trial against the company, appointing its own five-member supervisory board, to which Disney found a contractual loophole, claiming that the original contract which promised the autonomy of the company would be in effect until the end of the British monarchy, which is nowhere in sight.
Disney took legal action whom DeSantis now wants to fire at the end of April, calling his actions “retaliation” for the company’s opposition to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
Since the law’s enactment and the legal drama that followed, several organizations have warned travelers to reconsider traveling or moving to the state, in part because of these issues as well as other DeSantis bills regarding immigration, education and gun control – all hot-button issues. .
The first of them was Tie Florida, in mid-April. At the end of May, the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) also issued its own travel advisories warning African-American and Latino travelers not to visit the state – citing the DeSantis regime’s new education and immigration laws as reasons to boycott the state.
“Let me be clear: Failing to teach an accurate portrayal of the horrors and inequalities that Black Americans have faced and continue to face is a disservice to students and a dereliction of duty to all…” said the NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson in a statement. made when publishing the travel advisory. “Under the leadership of Governor DeSantis, the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans and is in direct conflict with the democratic ideals on which our union was founded. »
At the end of May, the largest LGBTQ organization updated its own travel information for Florida: the Human rights campaign. While highlighting the six new anti-LGBTQ bills recently passed to encourage greater awareness about them, the organization is not outright discouraging travelers from coming to the state.
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