{"id":49269,"date":"2024-08-31T21:42:16","date_gmt":"2024-09-01T01:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=49269"},"modified":"2024-08-31T21:42:21","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T01:42:21","slug":"youre-not-welcome-here-equality-groups-plan-to-fight-back-after-visit-florida-pulls-lgbtq-tourism-page","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/08\/31\/youre-not-welcome-here-equality-groups-plan-to-fight-back-after-visit-florida-pulls-lgbtq-tourism-page\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You\u2019re not welcome here:\u2019 Equality groups plan to fight back after VISIT FLORIDA pulls LGBTQ+ tourism page"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The CEO of Florida\u2019s lead tourism marketing agency is defending a decision to pull down an LGBTQ+ tourist information page from VISIT FLORIDA\u2019s website.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Meanwhile, LGBTQ+ groups are organizing an effort to pushback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nadine Smith, CEO of Equality Florida, argued the removal sends a message loud and clear to the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWe don\u2019t want you here. Get lost,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VISIT FLORIDA CEO Dana Young explained in a recent board meeting, that the taxpayer-funded organization\u2019s marketing strategy, materials, and content, \u201cMust align with the state\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We reached out to VISIT FLORIDA asking what specific state policy prevents the agency from promoting Florida to the LGBTQ+ community.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Democratic State Representative Anna Eskamani, who penned a letter to VISIT FLORIDA Friday demanding the LGBTQ+ page be restored, argued there is no such policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd if there was a policy like that I think you would also not only fall into discriminatory practices, but even some questions about the First Amendment,\u201d said Eskamani.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, Eskamani argued the decision only stands to alienate an entire population of potential visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bad economic decision when it comes to just generating revenue for diverse visitors, but it\u2019s also just plain discriminatory and it tells the community that you\u2019re not welcome here,\u201d said Eskamani.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Governor Ron DeSantis claimed earlier this week he wasn\u2019t aware the page had been taken down until after the fact but defended the decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re open to all, but we\u2019re not going to be segregating people by these different characteristics. That\u2019s not how we\u2019ve done business,\u201d said DeSantis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While VISIT FLORIDA does receive state funding to the tune of $80 million this year alone, the agency receives even more from private sector partners in the tourism and hospitality industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith said she hopes those private funders speak up and pressure the agency to reverse course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the question is really clear. Do you stand on the values that Florida is open to all? And if you do, you can\u2019t be silent in this moment,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Equality Florida has also launched a public pressure campaign it\u2019s calling \u2018Sunshine for All.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan is to gather letters of opposition from everyday citizens that will be sent directly to VISIT FLORIDA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The CEO of Florida\u2019s lead tourism marketing agency is defending a decision to pull down an LGBTQ+ tourist information page from VISIT FLORIDA\u2019s website. Meanwhile, LGBTQ+ groups are organizing an… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"17","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[9614],"class_list":["post-49269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-youre-not-welcome-here-equality-groups-plan-to-fight-back-after-visit-florida-pulls-lgbtq-tourism-page"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49273,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49269\/revisions\/49273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}