In 1999, I dated a girl from Anaheim, which you probably know as the home of both Disneyland and the Angels. At one point, I told her, "The big problem with Anaheim is that the city is Disney's bitch. When Disney says 'jump', Anaheim asks how high?" Even though she was a huge fan of Orange County and hated LA (where I was from), she actually agreed with me on this point. Indeed, Disney had incredible control over the city of Anaheim.
However, I never gave much thought to Disney's relationship on the other coast. Turned out it was even worse, as most of us are just learning about this past week.
It all started with Florida Governor Desantis' "Parental Rights in Education" bill. This has been derided by the left and mainstream media as the "Don't Say Gay" bill, but that isn't accurate.
The bill only focuses on kindergarten through third grade. It prohibits discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity at those grade levels, and also prohibits "non-age-appropriate" discussions of those concepts at other grade levels. It does NOT ban the word "gay" from schools, nor does it prevent the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity from the fourth grade or later.
A good and fair breakdown of the bill is here: https://askflagler.com/whats-really-...ducation-bill/
Disney, which has become increasingly woke over time, was trying to stay out of this matter, despite their obviously heavy presence in Florida. However, finally their CEO was under enough pressure from woke employees (especially some very vocal ones in California), and Disney came out in public opposition to the bill.
This, in turn, got Desantis angry. He felt that a huge, influential corporation was trying to kick him around and spread lies about his bill. Desantis decided to strike back, and said that Disney's "special status" in Florida needed to be "looked into".
Special status? Huh?
And that's when we learned about Disney's special status in Florida, which has existed for a long time.
Apparently Disney was granted the rights in 1967 to operate as its own government entity in and near Disney World, allowing it to be free of any city or county laws. This also gave them the right to operate its own state-credentialed police force, run their own water and power utilities, and make their own laws within their territory. In short, Disney is the only corporation in the United States which was given the ability to act as its own incorporated city, which is pretty appalling.
A corporation acting as its own government entity is a horrible idea. Government exists as a check against the power of corporations. Imagine if you have an issue with a Disneyland employee, and the police are called. Would you want the police to be literally controlled by Disney? This is just one of many potential probelms which can come up.
This special status should be removed ASAP. Most people had no idea such a status existed, except perhaps for some locals from the area.
However, I will say that it isn't a good look for Desantis using this particular moment to attempt to remove it. It has the appearance that he's punishing Disney for expressing a negative opinion of one of his bills, and indeed that's mostly what is happening here. In general, government officials should never punish individuals or corporations for crticizing them.
At the same time, I can understand why Desantis was so pissed off. It's one thing if the mainstream media or left-wing politicians mislead people about his Parents Rights bill, but it's another if the biggest corporation in his state is also doing it. He probably thought to himself, "If they're going to play dirty and fuck with me in order to appease the wokes in their company, I'm going to play dirty right back and attempt to kill that special status they really shouldn't have in my state, but I've looked the other way until now."
Not the greatest look for either side, to be honest, but regardless, this special status simply shouldn't exist.
