Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been banned from appearing at the Manhattan Museum of Jewish Heritage because the museum says the Republican doesn't "align" with their values after signing his state's bill not allowing gender identity and sexual orientation to be discussed in early school grades.
Critics have dubbed it the "Don't Say Gay" bill. The law, actually named the "Parental Rights in Education" bill, bans "[c]lassroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity … in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards."
DeSantis was set to speak at the June 12 conference of Tikvah, a Jewish educational and cultural institution that has held multiple events at the museum in years past, according to Elliott Abrams, the chairman, and Eric Cohen, CEO of Tikvah, and co-chairmen of the Jewish Leadership Conference.
"We thought it would be interesting to invite Gov. Ron DeSantis to discuss how the 'Florida model' has contributed to the growth and vitality of Jewish life in his state," the two wrote in a Thursday opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. "The event was to be held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. Until, as the saying goes, we got canceled.
"We were working closely with the museum on the details for the June 12 event — until, out of the blue, we were told by the museum staff that Mr. DeSantis didn’t 'align with the museum’s values and its message of inclusivity.' Either we disinvite the governor, they said, or our event was unwelcome," Abrams and Cohen write.
The museum fired back in a series of tweets on Friday, saying the authors had "fictionalized quotes" and included "factual inaccuracies."
"This is not a free speech or censorship issue. The Tikvah Fund is trying to create a fight where none exists. This was simply a contractual and logistical decision," the museum said.
"We welcome Governor DeSantis and elected officials from across the spectrum to visit the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust for a tour of our new exhibition, The Holocaust: What Hate Can Do, when it opens this summer," it added.
In the WSJ piece, the authors say they invited DeSantis because of his support of the Jewish community and how they don't get that same type of support from political leaders in New York.
"Our family is part of that renaissance. We moved from New York to Florida in January in large part because of the governor's leadership," they said. "And our governor takes the safety and security of Jews in his state very seriously."
Abrams and Cohen said they asked the museum for more details on why DeSantis wasn't allowed to speak and were told by the museum's CEO, "We don't do politics, whether left or right."
But, as they note in the piece, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, at the time a Democratic candidate for Congress, was a featured speaker at a museum event, and there was "public criticism of the museum for giving such a vociferous critic of Israel a prominent platform at a Jewish institution. Yet the event went on as planned."
Other politicians who have spoken there include then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, "who recently described America as a society plagued by white supremacy and lauded America’s re-entry into the anti-Israel Human Rights Commission," they noted.
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