NYC launches billboard campaign targeting Floridians irked by ‘Parental Rights in Education’ bill

Residents in five of Florida’s biggest cities will soon see billboards urging them to move to the Big Apple.

New York City rolled out a billboard campaign targeting people in the Sunshine State piqued by the recently passed Parental Rights in Education bill. The press release from the city describes the bill as “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, a phrase used by critics of the bill and adopted by much media in coverage.

The ads will run from April 4 through May 29 in Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa and West Palm Beach. New York City anticipates five million digital impressions from the campaign.

That legislation “bans instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade — a targeted attack on the LGBTQ+ population,” according to the official communication from the city.

“I am the Mayor of New York City, but I have a message for Florida’s LGBTQ+ community — come to a city where you can say and be whoever you want,” Mayor Eric Adams said. “Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill is the latest shameful, extremist culture war targeting the LGBTQ+ community. 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.”

The Governor’s Office was not worried about this campaign having an adverse impact.

“Mayor Adams is doing Florida a favor. If anyone is so upset about our governor defending parental rights and protecting young children from inappropriate instruction about sex and gender theory that they want to leave Florida for a crime-ridden socialist dystopia, I am quite confident our state will be better off without them,” asserted Christina Pushaw in an official email from her office as press secretary for Gov. Ron DeSantis

The Parental Rights in Education bill limits classroom instruction on topics including “instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity,” which is banned for students in kindergarten through third grade. Also prohibited: instruction for all students “in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

DeSantis has been aggressive in defending the legislation as a hedge against those who would otherwise have “injected” transgender issues into primary school classrooms.

“It’s basically saying for our younger students … do you really want them being taught about sex? And this is any sexual stuff. But I think clearly right now, we see a focus on transgenderism, telling kids they may be able to pick genders and all of that,” DeSantis said in March.