Erin Reed:

On Tuesday, the Florida legislature passed a bill that would ban all local governments from “promoting” or “adopting” activities related to diversity, equity, and inclusion—and bar any recipients of city contracts or grants from doing the same. The bill explicitly includes gender identity and sexual orientation in its definition of DEI, meaning any official activity “with reference to” LGBTQ+ people could trigger a violation. That could include promoting or supporting local Pride events with any city resources or funding LGBTQ+ community health centers. The bill also contains a novel and extreme enforcement mechanism: any elected official the governor deems in violation would be guilty of “misfeasance in office,” which under the Florida Constitution gives Governor DeSantis the power to immediately suspend that official by executive order—without a court hearing. It is a power he has already weaponized twice against elected Democratic state attorneys, and which would now expand to every city commissioner and county official in the state.

It’s worth reading the whole piece to see all the implications this could have, but the summary alone gives you a sense of how insane this is. I could talk about how this is exactly the kind of cancel culture that conservatives complain about, or I could talk about how this has a chilling effect on free speech, but I don’t think I need to go into detail on any of that. They just hate queer people.