Government

Florida's Lt Gov Is Very Confused About The First Amendment. Just Like Her Boss.

That is not how any of this goes.

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Torn 1st Amendment Constitution textLast week, after Florida legislators had already passed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill allowing parents to sue teachers who acknowledge that gay people exist, Disney CEO Bob Chapek finally got around to condemning it.

“Thank you to all who have reached out to me sharing your pain, frustration and sadness over the company’s response to the Florida ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill,” Chapek wrote in a memo to employees announcing that the company would be pausing donations to the bill’s sponsors.

“Speaking to you, reading your messages, and meeting with you have helped me better understand how painful our silence was. It is clear that this is not just an issue about a bill in Florida, but instead yet another challenge to basic human rights,” he wrote, when it was too late to do anything about it. “You needed me to be a stronger ally in the fight for equal rights and I let you down. I am sorry.”

Well, Florida Republicans aren’t going to take this vicious assault lying down. They know their rights.

Haha, just kidding. They are fundamentally confused about their “rights,” much less the “right” of any person to criticize the government.

Here’s Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nuñez explaining the First Amendment to Fox’s Laura Ingraham.

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“These feckless CEOs of these woke corporations, they’re too busy bowing down to the altar of the [Chinese Communist Party],” Nuñez vamped, seemingly oblivious that she was criticizing the company for failing to stand up to government censors in China, while simultaneously demanding that the company censor itself at home at the behest of the American government.

Also, not for nothing, but the CCP isn’t exactly known for its gay-friendliness.

“They will criticize our legislation, they will try to bully us. Like the NCAA did, like Disney’s doing. How dare they! They have no right to criticize legislation by duly elected legislators that are passing common sense legislation,” she continued. “To criticize and to threaten! Governor DeSantis and I won’t stand for it.”

To be fair, Lt. Gov. Nuñez is not a lawyer, so perhaps she doesn’t understand the finer points of First Amendment law. But surely Laura Ingraham, who clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas, knows damn well that that’s not how free speech goes. And Governor DeSantis (HLS 2005) knows the government can’t punish Disney for speaking out against the law. Or at least, he did know that at one time.

Recently courts have had to smack down his ridiculous anti-protest bill, his social media censorship law, and the University of Florida’s efforts to bar employees from testifying in litigation against the state. So perhaps the governor has engaged in some strategic forgetting.

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Just like the lieutenant governor, who seems to have forgotten that gay parents exist.

“We’re proud,” Nuñez went on. “In the free state of Florida, we put parents and their rights first.”

Well, not their First Amendment rights. Try to exercise those, and they’ll accuse you of being a pedophile. But, you know, if you’re want to sue a teacher for acknowledging that a student has two mommies, the state of Florida has got your back.

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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