Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is responding to calls for a travel advisory to be issued for his state.
During an event on Thursday, a reporter asked the governor about the Florida chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) pushing for travel advisory due to his policies.
“What a joke,” DeSantis responded.
He went on, “We’ll see how effective that is. Just remember, during COVID, these people would be on CNN all this stuff slamming Florida, saying we were so bad, don’t go to Florida.”
“And then they would end up being spotted on the beach somewhere vacationing in Florida. So this is just ridiculous,” he added.
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On Saturday, the NAACP Florida State Conference voted unanimously to ask the national headquarters for permission to issue a travel advisory over “draconian” legislation.
NAACP Florida State Conference Marsha Ellison told WTSP, “We would issue this to anyone who is thinking of coming to Florida, thinking of sending their children to school — anyone planning to breathe in Florida.”
“We want people to be ‘woke,’” she added.
The vote comes as DeSantis blocked an AP African American studies class in Florida because it included studies on “queer theory” and movements that advocated for “abolishing prisons.”
The governor called it a “political agenda.”
“That’s the wrong side of the line for Florida standards. We believe in teaching kids facts and how to think, but we don’t believe they should have an agenda imposed on them when you try to use Black history to shoehorn in queer theory, you are clearly trying to use that for political purposes,” he argued.
DeSantis is also moving to expand the Parental Rights in Education Act – dubbed ‘Don’t Say Gay’ by its critics.
The expansion would prevent classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for all grades.
There would be an exemption for reproductive health instruction that students can opt out of and where it is required by existing state standards.
The existing law prevents classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade.