No one has to shell out hard-earned cash to be entertained by a Disney product anymore.

Not starting Wednesday, when the giant entertainment conglomerate filed a federal lawsuit to overthrow Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to punish it for speaking out against DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” law.

The 77-page legal complaint, filed in federal court in Gainesville, seeks to end what it calls “a targeted campaign of government retaliation orchestrated every step of the way by Governor DeSantis as punishment for the protected speech of disney.”

“The state of Florida has blossomed in the years since Walt Disney himself surveyed many acres of wetlands in 1963 and dreamed of the possibility of Walt Disney World.”

That campaign, the lawsuit says, “threatens Disney’s business, jeopardizes its economic future in the region and violates its constitutional rights.”

Whether Disney can assert that claim in federal court is anyone’s guess. But its filing proves that the only thing DeSantis and his entourage find offensive about the company is the speech, and specifically the objection to the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

DeSantis wasn’t complaining about Disney in any way for that. He certainly didn’t turn down Disney’s $107,000 in contributions to his political campaigns. Nor did Florida Republicans turn down any of the $7.6 million in contributions they’ve received from the company over the past 20 years. They only started taking a stance on Disney when they thought it would be a high-profile foil in their anti-wake up campaigns.

The outline of the Disney-DeSantis fight is well chewed at this point. It’s the personal swipes buried in the company’s legal documents that entertain and amuse. More about that later.

Let’s summarize first. It’s about the Walt Disney

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Public criticism of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill, signed into law by DeSantis in March 2022.

The law, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by its critics, suppresses, even outlaws, discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity in Florida schools through third grade, and restricts those discussions in the upper classes.

The law was part of DeSantis’ campaign to stamp out what he called “awakened” ideology from Florida, a stance clearly designed to appeal to a conservative voting bloc as he prepared for the GOP nomination for

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resident.

Column: How Disney’s lawyers brutally mauled DeSantis to take control of Disney World

Among his former

director,

Bob Chapek, Disney initially remained silent on the measure, despite its reputation for accommodating LGBTQ+ people among its employees and park visitors. Chapek eventually gave in to pressure from Disney employees and others and spoke out against the law.

DeSantis promptly hit back. He moved to revoke Disney’s near-dictatorial control of the 43-square-mile Walt Disney World grounds and associated theme parks and resorts outside of Orlando.

Through the Reedy Creek Improvement District, controlled by Disney and established in a deal between the company and then-Governor of Florida at the time, Claude Kirk, in 1967, Disney has kept the site in manicured beauty for more than half a century.

However, DeSantis’ attempts to take control of the district hit a roadblock. Days before signing a bill that turned the district over to a hand-picked board of political henchmen, Disney signed long-term development contracts with the district’s PR.

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existing board (made up of hand-picked Disney stooges) that retained the company’s development rights for decades to come.

Advantage, Disney.

DeSantis hasn’t stopped having a stomach ache about being outsmarted by Disney’s lawyers. He has claimed the development contracts are not legal and threatened to take actions in the district that Disney will not like.

At one point, he even floated the prospect of building a state prison on unused land within the tract, which would obviously do wonders for maintaining Florida’s allure.

number one no. 1

tourist attraction.

On Wednesday, the DeSantis board voted to declare the development contracts “void and unenforceable.” Disney knew this was coming

,

and immediately filed the lawsuit.

Now let’s look at Disney’s case, as set out in the lawsuit.

Column: In Florida, Disney learns what happens if its politicians don’t stay bribed

First, the company takes credit for turning central Florida from a godforsaken wasteland into a booming economic engine for the entire state. It’s hard to argue with that.

“The state of Florida has blossomed in the years since Walt Disney himself surveyed many acres of wetlands in 1963 and dreamed of the possibility of Walt Disney World,” the lawsuit said. (You must love that “marshland” joke.)

The filing notes that Disney employs more than 75,000 Floridians at its park complex and is “one of Central Florida’s largest taxpayers, with more than $1.1 billion paid in state and local taxes last year.”

Disney warns that DeSantis tampers with that engine at his peril. The company says it plans to invest more than $17 billion in Walt Disney World over the next ten years, creating 13,000 new jobs.

In his lawsuit, Disney also documents how DeSantis and his Republican thugs invade the state

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legislatures have led with their collective kin in openly stating that they aim to punish Disney for speaking its business mind.

“They have proudly stated that Disney deserves this fate because of what Disney said,” the lawsuit states, which “produces as clear a case of retaliation as this Court is ever likely to do.”

See.” Column: On Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, Disney sets a new standard for corporate cowardice

It’s hard to believe that the Republicans can be so stupid, but there you have it. The company quotes one of the sponsors of the Reedy Creek dissolution law as saying, “This law targets one company. It targets the Walt Disney Company.”

The lawsuit also documents DeSantis’ increasingly feverish and silly claims about Disney’s ideology.

“Disney… has clearly crossed a line in its support of indoctrinating very young schoolchildren in awakened gender identity politics,” DeSantis wrote in his recently published memoir, “The Courage to be Free.”

In the same book, DeSantis called Disney’s candor about the Don’t Say Gay law “a textbook example of when a corporation should stay out of politics.” As a matter of fact, in the same book, DeSantis writes that Disney “has a huge presence in Florida, but is headquartered in the left-wing enclave of Burbank, California.”

Q: Has DeSantis ever been to Burbank, California? Maybe he’s confusing it with Berkeley, California.

One almost sympathizes with Ron DeSantis. His presidential aspirations are up in the air. That’s partly because he’s proved to be a ridiculously clumsy politician whenever he’s ventured beyond the confines of his greenhouse of a state, and partly because he has all the look of a linoleum floor. That’s not good if you’re trying to displace Donald Trump, who can draw wall-to-wall media attention when he takes a mid-afternoon siesta.

DeSantis’ anti-Disney campaign seems to be bursting at the seams. Republicans outside of Florida are skeptical of hiring a company that is much more popular among ordinary Americans than he is, and which also appears to have much better lawyers.

In the meantime, the rest of us can sit back and enjoy the show, and we also don’t have to pay $10.99 a month for Disney+ to stream it on TV.