Disney v. DeSantis: A Battle Royale Over The Magic Kingdom
Gary Gately
An epic battle is playing out over control of the Magic Kingdom between Florida?Governor Ron DeSantis?and the?The Walt Disney Company. It has escalated since beginning last March, when Disney’s CEO publicly criticized the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” measure governing what can be discussed about sexual orientation and gender identity in the state’s public schools.
DeSantis, who proclaims himself a devout Catholic and enforcer of moral values, as he defines them, quickly retaliated by moving to strip Disney of the power it has held since 1967 to self-govern?Walt Disney World?and Disney’s other Orlando-area resorts.
The governor, widely expected to make a GOP White House run in 2024, has repeatedly boasted that he has punished Disney for “subverting the will” of state lawmakers.
“Disney’s corporate kingdom is over,” he tweeted on April 17.
When DeSantis’s newly installed, hand-picked board voted last week to dissolve the agreement that has given Disney self-governance of Disney World and its other theme parks for 56 years, Disney immediately filed a filed a?federal lawsuit?contending DeSantis retaliated against the company and violated its First Amendment rights.
“In America, the government cannot punish you for speaking your mind,” Disney attorneys wrote in the suit. “This government action was patently retaliatory, patently anti-business, and patently unconstitutional. But the Governor and his allies have made clear they do not care and will not stop.”
Then, on Monday, the DeSantis-backed board asked a Florida court in a lawsuit to rip up the contracts the original board had inked, giving the company the self-governance authority.?“These agreements,” the puppet board said in the suit, “reek of a back-room deal. Out of haste or ignorance, Disney’s deals violate basic principles of Florida constitutional, statutory and common law. As a result, they are null and void — not even worth the paper they were printed on.”
The criticism of the “Don’t Say Gay” measure that set off the legal battle between DeSantis and Disney came from then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek 10 days before the governor signed the bill in March 2022 ,?
Chapek raised concerns that the measure “could be unfairly used to target gay, lesbian, nonbinary and transgender kids and families.” LGBTQ youths routinely endure bullying and threats, and sometimes violence, and they suffer much higher rates of anxiety, depression and suicide attempts than their non-LGBTQ peers.?
The LGBTQ advocacy?The Trevor Project?reported in May that a large-scale survey found that 45 percent of LGBTQ Americans ages 13-24 seriously contemplated suicide within the past year, and more than 700,000 of them attempted suicide, an average of one every 45 seconds. Trans Americans in that age group attempted to end their lives much more frequently — 1 in 5 of them.
The Trevor Project says a supportive school environment can go a long way toward reducing bullying, threats and violence targeting LGBTQ?youths, which often triggers severe anxiety, depression and even suicide attempts.?
President Joe Biden, like DeSantis, a Catholic, has roundly criticized the “Don’t Say Gay” as “hateful” law, saying it will make LGBTQ youths vulnerable to ostracism, bullying, threats and violence.
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At the White House Correspondents Association Dinner Saturday, Biden mocked DeSantis.
“I had a lot of Ron DeSantis jokes ready, but Mickey Mouse beat the Hell out of me and got there first,” the president said. “If there's one person that could use a scandal, it's Ron DeSantis. That boy is just running around just passing every controversial law he can think of, thinking that's going to activate voters. That's not how you activate voters in this country. Ron, everybody know how to do politics. This is America. We don't pass laws. You make a promise to voters. And then you don't do it. That's what the great leaders in this room understand. You know how to make things not happen.
DeSantis, a 44-year-old Iraq War veteran and married father of three children, has spread his crusade against the “far-left woke agenda” well beyond “Don’t Say Gay,” which the state’s school board expanded to all grades in July.??
Book bans, for example, routinely keep nonfiction and fiction titles focusing on LGBTQ or systemic injustice in American society out of schools, and a single objection to a book automatically removes it from student reading lists until completion lengthy investigation by review panel charged with determining whether it is appropriate.?
DeSantis hopes to expand a “moment of silence” in public schools to a return to school prayer. The Founding Fathers, he insists, never meant by separation of church and state banning prayer in schools, he insists. The governor also has signed a?bill banning transgender athletes?from women’s and girls’ public school teams.
Some critics portray DeSantis as a pure political opportunist, a megalomaniac, a governor in a democracy who apparently confuses the role with that of an autocratic ruler bent on imposing his Christian nationalism on the state of Florida and ultimately, his eyes fixed on the prize, America.
This is a man who has proclaimed in campaign ads and speeches that God himself, in need of a “protector,” appointed Ron DeSantis to the divine mission to serve as the Lord’s “fighter.”
But even some of his critics acknowledge that DeSantis, while espousing some of the far-right nationalistic views of Donald Trump, does so much more articulately as a Harvard-educated lawyer and a shrewd politician.
DeSantis has long been a big fan of Disney, his new legal foe. He took vows with his wife, Casey, at a 2009 Disney World wedding. He has routinely given public shout-outs to?Disney, Florida’s biggest taxpayer,as a major economic force and employer in Florida. And he has visited Disney World and other Disney resorts regularly over the years.
While sharing many of DeSantis’ political stances, some GOP 2023 presidential candidates and prospective contenders have criticized the governor for taking on Disney.?
Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor making a 2024 run for the White House, tweeted an invitation to Disney to move its resorts and more than 70,000 jobs from Florida to her state.?
Former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said the legal battle isn’t in keeping with conservative principles of limited government. Former President Donald Trump attacked the Disney-DeSantis brawl as a “political stunt.”