‘Get the hell out of my city!’
Pols, LGBTQ activists say boycott Chelsea Piers over DeSantis appearance
Ron, begone!
That was the message Sunday from dozens of LGBTQ rights activists and local elected officials outraged over Chelsea Piers’ decision to host a conservative conference featuring Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Amid chants of “Shame!” and calls for a boycott, they voiced their fury over Chelsea Piers’ refusal to cancel the event — which took place in the middle of Pride Month — and denounced DeSantis for his support of the so-called Don’t Say Gay bill in his home state.
“It is unacceptable that Chelsea Piers has not canceled a speech by the most anti-LGBTQ public official in America,” said state Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Democrat who represents the area. “This is a disgrace given the history of the Piers, the proximity to the birthplace of the LGBTQ human rights movement and the fact that we’re in the middle of Pride.”
DeSantis spoke at the closeddoor conference, hosted by the conservative Jewish organization the Tikvah foundation, on Sunday afternoon. His topic was “the Florida model and why it’s good for religious Americans,” according to the conference’s website.
He appeared to make light of the protests at the start of his speech.
“I saw that there was a little bit of opposition to me coming here,” DeSantis said to laughs, according to video posted to Twitter. “All I can tell you is this: When the left’s having a spasm, that just tells you that in Florida, we are winning on the issues that matter.
“I wasn’t going to let some
protests deter me from coming to speak,” he added.
He’s come under fire from LGBTQ groups and many Democrats since signing the law banning instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten through third grade — “or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards” — in March.
Chelsea Piers and Pier Sixty, the West Side gala space hosting the conference, have gone on the defensive since news of the DeSantis event surfaced earlier this month. But they rejected calls to cancel it.
“We could not disagree more strongly with many of Ron DeSantis’ actions in office,” Chelsea Piers said in a Friday statement, promising that Pier Sixty would donate the payment it receives from the Tikvah foundation to pro-LGBTQ groups.
That wasn’t good enough for protesters who stood behind police barricades amid drizzling rain near the Pier Sixty entrance.
“It’s insulting,” Mike Dunn, a 31-year-old social worker, said of Pier Sixty’s donation plans. “I hope everybody here makes them regret this for years. We are not going away tomorrow.”
“Ron DeSantis is a feckless
coward, [a] bootlicker who is actively hurting some of the most vulnerable people in this country,” Dunn added.
In the online world, a number of people promised to stop patronizing Chelsea Piers.
“This is not sufficient,” former federal prosecutor Richard Signorelli tweeted in reply to the venue’s statement. “Boycott @ChelseaPiersNYC unless reprobate @RonDeSantisFL is banned from attending.”
Protesters said the Don’t Say Gay law has nationwide ramifications.
“This kind of behavior is about violence,” said Assemblywoman
Yuh-Line Niou, a lower Manhattan Democrat. “It is about hurting us. It is about making it so our communities are harmed.”
She and other demonstrators noted that Sunday marked the six-year anniversary of the mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando.
“For it to be Pride Month, the anniversary of the Pulse shootings in Orlando — it’s obviously performative for these people, it’s obviously supposed to harm us, it’s supposed to make us feel bad, and they are doing it on purpose and Chelsea Piers is allowing them to do it to us,” Niou said.
Last month, the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park halted plans to host the conference when it learned DeSantis had been invited to speak, The New York Times reported. The museum explained to the fund’s executive director that the “Don’t Say Gay” bill doesn’t align with its values, he told the paper.
Tikvah foundation did not answer a request for comment.
VIP attendees like DeSantis and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared to avoid the protesters by being driven to Pier Sixty’s garage. They first had to go past small groups of demonstrators chanting near red lights on 11th Ave.
“I’m furious about what is happening here,” said Joseph Alexiou, 38, a freelance journalist.
DeSantis is “like the worst person for gay people right now in this country, and they’re hosting him here,” he added. “Get the hell out of my city.”
Alaina Ables, 33, seconded the sentiment.
“I have a lot of LGBTQ friends, and I’m also a therapist with a lot of LGBTQ clients, so I decided to stand in solidarity — and I also hate DeSantis,” she said.