Is It Okay To Support Progressive & LGBTQ Communities In Red States?

Florida, what are we going to do with you?

With the Don’t Say Gay law, the Stop Woke Act, and then the current fight the Florida Governor and fellow Republicans are having with Disney for speaking out against the new limiting laws, it’s pretty messy down here, more than usual, which most of us didn’t realize could happen.

The recent temper tantrum and rush of hateful legislation that little Ronnie DeSantis has had while his republican’ts cheer him on yelling groomers, indoctrination, and pedophiles… it’s all just a little too much, disgusting, and re-establishes the fact that people like this need to not be in any positions of power with their narrow vision of equality with them in the sights and everyone else on the other side of their blinders.

What are you doing living in Florida?

So many messages like that have come my way in the recent months and they have multiplied as you can imagine. One of those messages sent to me four weeks ago helped me take my head out of the depressing sand and I wrote the piece Wilton Manors & Fort Lauderdale Just Get It – The Way Life Should Be. We just had the AIDS Walk, Laith Ashley and Miss Coco Peru were coming to perform and celebrate diversity, and there was a bear event taking over one of the streets here in Wilton Manors; a plethora of gay activity, on top of all of the other gayness that is present here every single day. 

Shortly after that post went live, we received an email from one of our readers, Joshua. It read:

So you let Adam write a puff piece about how wonderful Florida is. Completely failing to mention anything about the Don’t Say Gay bill. Meanwhile, Disney employees are staging a massive walkout over the bill. All this in a gay oriented magazine. HA. Stay classy Instinct. Whooooossh. That’s you totally missing the mark.

Yes, I’m snarky, so my response was:

I’m not sorry at all that my piece did not bring to mention the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, an issue we have covered with several pieces already. My mark was hit. We in Florida are pushing forward with life, love, and celebration, even with our governor ruling over us with his republican’t ideals, even though we hear it every day on the news, and we discuss it every single day.  We do not cover every issue in the LGTQ+ community every single day. No one would do that. Who would do that. 

 

It is unfortunate that your fingers got a little upset by some positive news from Florida. We should be reporting on just deaths, hatred, and ridicule.  Gotcha. 

What should we gay Floridians do?

Should all the gay Floridians just give up? Move out? Stop living and loving our lives? I’m not a fan of that. Visibility is everything. Representation is everything. Things don’t get to the state of changing for the better if no one pushes it to do so or is here to support the positive movement.

What should you as tourists do with your dollars?

Will the gays steer away from Florida? Be a Joshua and just embrace only the negative? Or do you still continue to visit and support the gay businesses and gay communities? It’s all a personal choice you and your money must make together. 

VisitLauderdale, the tourism organization for the Greater Fort Lauderdale area, released a new video in response to the new republican agenda coming out of Tallahassee.