So these Christian Nationalist racist bigots are OK and promote businesses harming / refusing service to LGBTQIA people, but refuse and will use their office to demand no business offer a safe welcoming space to those same targeted LGBTQIA people. That should tell you their goal. Remove all LGBTQIA and anything supporting it from public society. They basically are demanding a cis straight society only, a complete return back to the 1950s or earlier. Hugs
The Associated Press reports:
Some central Florida lawmakers said they were considering “all legislative, legal and executive options available” to stop business owners in a small town from voluntarily displaying rainbow decals in their windows indicating that they are “safe place” for LGBTQ+ people who feel threatened.
Four Republican lawmakers wrote a letter to officials in Mount Dora two weeks ago warning that the new, optional city-sponsored program could put the central Florida community outside Orlando “in the crosshairs of potentially detrimental and absolutely unnecessary economic harm.”
Mount Dora’s city council approved the Safe Place Initiative last month. The city of 17,000 residents is known for its antique shops and weekend festivals. The council’s decision to approve the program has coincided with an uptick in anti-LGBTQ+ incidents, including vandalism last month at two LGBTQ+ centers in Orlando.
The Orlando Sentinel reports:
The initiative was approved by the City Council in a unanimous vote last week, but now may be reconsidered after city officials received the letter signed by Republican Sen. Dennis Baxley, and Reps. Keith Truenow, Taylor Yarkosky and Stan McClain.
“In light of what we have seen around this country in regards to the pushback and unprecedented financial harm to long standing American made companies such as Anheuser-Busch and Target Corporation, this local ‘Safe Place’ program is negligent, irresponsible and divisive at best.”
In a Facebook post applauding the letter – claiming a “legislative wipeout INCOMING” – the Lake County Republican Party said the city “passed a woke program demanding local business owners display ‘Anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime stickers’ on the front doors of their businesses.”
State Sen. Dennis Baxley [photo above] last year led the push in his chamber to pass the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. In 2019, he appeared here for his failed bill that would have directed public school teachers to argue against climate change and evolution. In 2005 he introduced the NRA-written “Stand Your Ground” bill that was successfully used in the murder of Trayvon Martin. That same year he introduced a failed bill that would have allowed students to sue university professors if they failed, for example, to allow students to promote Holocaust denial in classroom discussions. A descendant of a Confederate soldier, Baxley fought against the creation of the Florida Slavery Memorial, which was approved in 2018 and remains unbuilt.
Scottie's Playtime 
Republicans keep saying the word “free,” but it doesn’t seem they know what it really means. In this case, in regard to free markets, which they’re supposed to favor. I’d almost take their concern-trolling as threatening, but maybe that’s just me. I think business owners can decide how they want to promote their businesses, and if someone is afraid a queer person is in a business, well, they can go to another business, the same way a queer person would go to a business in which they feel safe.
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Hello Ali. The object of a business / store is to sell their goods. To do that they need people to come into the store, and the longer people stay the more they will buy, and that is better for the business. The important thing to keeping people in the store is how comfortable people feel while there. Years ago Circuit city lost a lot of business because on days when young barely out of school teens would in running the store they would have the overhead music playing at very loud volume. A lot of people wouldn’t stay in the store as it was too loud to even talk comfortably to anyone.
So making sure that a large buying segment feels comfortable in your store is to tell them they are welcome and safe. If women in an area felt fearful, a store might put up a sign that women were welcome and safe there. The problem the republican fundamentalist Christians have been being that they want all sign of the LGBTQIA people removed from society. They don’t want them comfortable anywhere because they don’t want them to exist at all. So even though they are normally pro-business, they want their moral view of the proper society more. It is like if they did not want black people in white areas of town and a store in that area put up a sign saying black people were welcome and safe. The right wing white racists would lose their minds over seeing black skin in their white areas only. Hugs
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Hello Ten Bears. Thank you for the song. I had trouble understanding the words, which is common for me, my hearing is not as good as it once was. So I copied the lyrics in case others also had trouble understanding them. Hugs
Ringlin’, Ringlin’ slippin’ away
Only forty people livin’ there today
Streets are dusty and the bank has been torn down
It’s a dyin’ little town
[Verse 1]
Church windows broken, that place ain’t been used in years
Jail don’t have a sheriff or a cell
And electric trains, they run by maybe once or twice a month
Easin’ it on down to Muscle Shell
[Chorus 1]
Ringlin’, Ringlin’ slippin’ away
Only forty people livin’ there today
‘Cause the streets are dusty and the bank has been torn down
It’s a dyin’ little town
[Bridge]
And across from the bar, there’s a pile of beer cans
Been there twenty-seven years
Imagine all the heartaches and tears
In twenty-seven years of beer
[Verse 2]
So we hopped back in the rent-a-car and we hit the cruise control
Pretty soon the town was out of sight
Though we left behind a fat barmaid, a cowboy and a dog
Bracin’ for a Ringlin’ Friday night
[Chorus 2]
Ringlin’, Ringlin’ you’re just slippin’ away
I wonder how many people will be there a year from today
‘Cause the streets are dusty and the bank has been torn down
It’s a dyin’ little town
[Refrain]
Yeah, it’s a dyin’ little town
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