Disney Sues Desantis

Good stuff. But the conservatives still accomplished their goal. They created the permission structure for discrimination in the name of religious freedom, so that those that wanted to discriminate had a ready made justification for doing so, even if they hadn't considered that angle previously, and even if they might not have discriminated but for the newly created permission structure. Legislatures like Florida's picked up the intended signal.

They also chilled political bodies (city councils, etc.), that might have been inclined to promote equality, for fear of being bogged down in litigation from bigot advocates like the ADF.

 

Says Antonin Scalia, who was a fervent Catholic. You keep vacillating between content (compelled speech) and religious discrimination (free exercise). These are two separate issues.

 

Historically on the issue here, I have leaned most heavily on expression/content, citing artistic protection.

 

That's fine. But I responded to your argument about religious discrimination explaining why it isn't that and why deciding that it is would be quite damaging for society. The compelled speech argument is a much tougher call. I acknowledge that. It's really about figuring out where and how to draw the line.

 

99/100 say its part of their taxes

 

I defend the religious aspect because that was the actual case at hand and I disagree to an extent with Scalia while understanding the navigational difficulty.

My personal belief is that a much more winnable strategy in these cases is artistic expression/speech.

I disagree that either religious freedom or speech is violated by a content-less cake though.

If the cake is plain. Sell the freaking cake.

 

Not sure what to make of the polls. I see the Harvard Harris poll, and here's one by Ipsos.

https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/reutersipsos-poll-americans-say-desantis-punishing-disney-free-speech

Detailed Findings

Following recent arguments between Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, seven in ten Americans (73%) say they are aware of Disney objecting to recent Florida laws banning the discussion of sexuality and gender in public schools, while nearly four in five (78%) say they are aware of recent efforts to revoke some of Walt Disney World’s legal privileges in Florida. Despite such high awareness of these events, a plurality (47%) of Americans say they do not know who is winning the fight. Regardless, 64% of Americans say they believe DeSantis is punishing Disney for exercising their right to free speech, while only 36% say they believe he is rightfully rolling back special treatment for Disney. Opinions are largely divided along party lines, where 87% of Democrats and 67% of independents say DeSantis is punishing Disney while 64% of Republicans say DeSantis is rightfully rolling back Disney’s special privileges.

 

That last sentence is something. If opinions being divided "along party lines" means a supermajority of folks who aren't Republicans see clearly what he's doing, that's definitely not the meaning I give to the phrase.

 

I understand you're just reporting the poll as worded. But I hate the wording of the so-called "special privileges". In reality, the deal that the Florida Legislature made in the 60s to create the Reedy Creek Improvement District has been to the great benefit of the State of Florida. It is one any rational Legislature should have made and one that was absolutely necessary to get Disney to move through with the Florida project. It is actually part of the appeal.

To use an analogy from employment law, it was the equivalent of a "bona fide occupational qualification" to grant Disney those powers in order to create the reality of what we currently consider Disney World. And the state has benefited immensely, without cost.

On top of the abstract legal issues, it is just so disingenuous and also unwise to talk about revoking Disney's special privileges. Decades ago, I was actually involved in an attempt to put together a presentation to the legislature to repeat that process. There was no way to put together the same type of conditions. But it was very wise of the Florida legislature to grant that district.

 

There was a great conversation with Sarah Rumpf (Conservative Contributor to Mediate, Previous writer for Fox ; UF Law grad) on Dan Abrams POTUS show. Her knowledge on this topic per Dan and per just listening to the interview is extreme. She highlighted that Florida told Disney when it bought the land and presented their plan; Florida does not have the resources to build out the infrastructure Disney would need and insisted on the special district. The other critical part of the “special privilege” claim is that there are 1,800 of these special districts in Florida. One is “ The Villages”.

After listening to this 40 minute legal conversation. Disney will easily win this. Where DeSantis screwed up big time was by publicly stating that it was about Disneys position on “Don’t Say Gay Bill”; the companies, “First Amendment Right”. They brought up a case that will be front and center when Giuliani tried to defund the art museum because of a piece of art he found objectionable. Giuliani lost on “ First Amendment”. Had he kept his mouth shut why; might have won. Interestingly; Dan’s Father was the lawyer who won against Giuliani.

Florida is home to more than 1,800 special districts of all shapes, sizes and flavors, from housing and community development districts to quasi-governmental agencies.
Florida special tax districts like Disney’s Reedy Creek, explained.

 

AS was Opus Dei. Hence, he doesn't even accept free exercise as a natural right. He believes in state religion and compulsory deference, so long as it is the "right" church. Native American worship doesn't count; hence, ED v Smith which the current court hates and can't wait to overturn, to permit state compulsion of deference to the the "correct" dogma.

 

In case anyone needs reminder that plenty of Catholics want to suppress Fr. Martin and will likely be able to do so in the next papacy



But if you want to feel better about the world, check out the documentary on Fr. Jim:



and the book it is based on (quick read)

 

Thanks to both of you. It seems I had my facts wrong here, so probably this pushes me back to the side of the customers on this one.

 

If anyone wants to understand why I still think DeSantis will get away with this, check out yesterday's decision from the 11th Circuit reversing Judge Walker, including his factual findings of racial animus, with respect to the redistricting.

He basically said you can't find discriminatory intent based upon comments supporting such intent from legislators and you have to presume goodwill even if they sound racist. It's just absurd. He also picked up on the argument that legislators are not trying to suppress black votes; they are trying to suppress Democrats. Because blacks vote for Democrats, it only looks racist. Of course, why do Blacks vote for Democrats? Not because the Democratic Party has been so fair to them, far from it, but because the Republican Party is so racist. But this argument turns that racism into an asset.

And of course I can't forget that Pryor authored a racially odious opinion on the felon voting issue three years ago and is also hired a white supremacist clerk, whom he said he cleared of charges regarding all of her emails expressing white supremacists ideas on the basis that she must of been hacked and was vouched for by Ginni Thomas.

Stuff like this makes me cynical that it doesn't matter.

 

On the other hand, First Amendment issues are treated differently. It's basically impossible to win racially discriminatory purpose claims in the Eleventh Circuit these days. And yes, Bill Pryor is an odious hack.

Disney isn't guaranteed to win. But their causes of action are less of an uphill battle than the equal protection claim in League of Women Voters. The right-wing majority on the Eleventh Circuit are perfectly fine with racist laws.

 

Exactly, and if there were any doubts as to the bakers motive, the baker was later “targeted” by a different activist, and predictably refused to make a pink and blue cake. Again, not much special about the cake other than than the activist told them the cake was for a trans person transitioning.

I’m very sympathetic to actual/legitimate speech issues. When it comes to cakes - I think they are reeeeeaaalllllly stretching with the speech argument to try and pretend it’s not discrimination/bigotry where it clearly is. The bottom line is the baker was not asked to do anything outside the norm of his primary business. No different from a caterer refusing to supply the food and drink. The argument for “artistic expression” is spurious and weak because no real “art” was asked of him. His issue was with the customer. LGBTQ people deserve the same protections as everyone else imo, and Colorado as a state provides these protections. At least on basic services. You commonly see the bad faith arguments raised “well you wouldnt force a Jewish baker to bake a cake with Nazi swastikas would you?”. Well.. of course not, but that is also a ludicrous comparable to anything asked in these cases.

 

This is interesting to see in graphic format Disney's financial impact on Florida.

 

I don’t think they’ll be forced to take an opinion on it, but the DeSantis crew will be in some cognitive dissonance today regarding the looming writer’s strike. They love to attack Disney for being too woke and tolerant towards people they don’t think you should have equal rights. But this is the side of Disney is far more predominant, and which they have common cause with, the exploitation of labor.

 

I believe there was a time at least as recent as the 80s when Republicans were pro-immigration and the Democrats fought immigration to protect domestic labor interests. For whatever reason, this interestingly completely shifted, and now the two groups occupy the polar opposite stances to their ideological predecessors from the 80s.

I wonder if we are beginning to see the same kind of sea change at work with regard to regulation of corporations. Just a few years ago Mitt Romney said, out loud, “corporations are people.” And today, we have DeSantis attacking a private corporation for nothing other than a statement they made with barely more than a single peep of Republican pushback. As weird as it sounds, it wouldn’t seem too crazy to me if the Republicans’ push for populism had them take up worker’s rights as a platform in the near future.

 

Historically there were two camps in both parties, as you have indicated. Pro union labor democrats were not fond of immigrations. Reagan and GWB were both sympathetic to immigration in the Republican Party. You have libertarian and free market interests that were pro immigration but still had a xenophobic or anti immigration strain in the Republican base. You had Pete Wilson as the gov in CA in the 90s who really pushed back hard on immigration.

I think the anti immigration strain was always there, it is just that corporate interests and the elite power base really dictated the party policy.