DeSantis’ office had two Pulse drafts. He signed one that omitted mentions of LGBTQ and Hispanic victims
The Florida governor’s office created two versions of a June proclamation marking the threeyear remembrance of the Pulse nightclub shooting, according to documents obtained this week by the Tampa Bay Times. One proclamation acknowledged the tragedy’s LGBTQ and Hispanic victims. The other did not.
Gov. Ron DeSantis ultimately signed the one that did not.
DeSantis later said that was a mistake, and he issued a corrected proclamation recognizing the LGBTQ and Hispanic communities. His office blamed staff error. But the previously unreported documents indicate that someone inside the governor’s office had created two drastically different options for DeSantis to send out.
The one draft version declared: “The State of Florida will not tolerate hatred towards the LGBTQ and Hispanic communities and we will stand boldly with Orlando and the Central Florida community against terrorism and hate.”
That one initially did not make it out of the governor’s office. Instead, DeSantis signed one that omitted the reference to the victims’ sexuality and ethnicity. It also removed the word “hate.”
That proclamation stated: “The entire state of Florida has come together to stand boldly with Orlando and the Central Florida community against terrorism.”
The records don’t make clear why two versions were written or who authored them, nor do they indicate DeSantis knew an alternative draft existed. DeSantis spokeswoman Helen Aguirre Ferré blamed confusion, saying “the process was circumvented by a staff member” who shouldn’t have been involved. A month before the proclamation was issued, emails showed uncertainty between the governor’s advance team and his legal staff over who would oversee the remembrance.
After the article was published Friday morning, Ferré added that the governor’s office was unaware a second draft proclamation existed.
“Regrettably, the only proclamation that was presented for 2019 did not include the important references to the LGBTQ and Hispanic victims of this tragic attack,” she said.
On Twitter, Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, suggested that the mistake in the governor’s office occurred because of “a disregard for #LGBTQ people and #latinx communities. Likely because these aren’t constituencies that our governor thinks about often.”
Eskamani encouraged DeSantis to support legislation that guarantees protections for LGBTQ people in the workplace. The bill gained more traction this past year than ever before but still failed to pass.
The drafts of the proclamation were obtained by the Times in a records request to DeSantis’ office.
The backlash was immediate when DeSantis issued a proclamation on the eve of the June 12 remembrance without that acknowledgment. Pulse victims and LGBTQ advocates criticized DeSantis. Embarrassing national headlines for the new Republican governor circulated online.
By midday, DeSantis had issued a corrected proclamation that included a reference to the affected communities. He visited the Pulse memorial in Orlando later that day.
“Once Gov. DeSantis learned of this staff error, he immediately ordered a corrected version of the proclamation be re-issued to include the reference to the LGBTQ and Hispanic communities,” Ferré said, “which had been included in his statement on Twitter earlier that morning.”