New York City is rolling out the welcome for LGBTQ+ Floridians.
On Monday, Mayor Eric Adams announced a new ad campaign encouraging LGBTQ+ Florida residents, following the passage of an anti-LGBTQ+ bill in the state’s legislature, to relocate to New York City.
The campaign will feature six billboards in Jacksonville, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Orlando, and Fort Lauderdale, which will run through April and May. According to Forbes, the ads will feature slogans in support of the LGBTQ+ community, including “When other states show their true colors, we show ours” and “Loud. Proud. Still Allowed.”
They will be paid for, Forbes reports, by private donations.
The campaign follows Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ signing of the Parental Rights in Education Bill, known popularly as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which bans LGBTQ+ content from primary school classrooms. DeSantis signed the bill into law in late March of this year, after it passed in both chambers of the state legislature.
In a press conference on Monday, Mayor Adams referred to the bill as the “latest shameful, extremist culture war targeting the LGBTQ+ community,” NBC reports.
“Today, we say to the families living in fear of this state-sponsored discrimination that you will always have a home in New York City,” Adams said, referring to New York City as “the city of Stonewall.”
Florida’s bill, which has garnered attention nationwide, is only the latest in a series of bills and legislative measures across the country targeting LGBTQ+ rights. Legislators in Tennessee have proposed their own bill to limit LGBTQ+ content in school classrooms, while lawmakers in Texas and Mississippi have imposed restrictions on such content in schools and libraries.
