South Florida Republican is told he can’t ride in Miami Beach Pride parade. He’s threatening to sue
When Florida Rep. Fabian Basabe rolled down Ocean Drive during the Miami Beach Pride parade last year, a commotion followed. Protesters booed and chanted “shame” at the Republican lawmaker for supporting anti-LGBTQ legislation. Basabe, flanked by police in helmets, blew kisses and yelled back as he sat atop a convertible.
This year, parade organizers are trying to avoid a repeat performance during the event set for April 14.
“We can’t risk having you in the parade this year,” Bruce Horwich, who chairs the nonprofit that oversees the parade, told Basabe in a March 16 text message. “Our bylaws clearly state that we can’t have participants that put themselves or other participants at risk or antagonize our guests.”
Basabe, a former reality TV star and socialite who has had a tumultuous first term as a state representative, has responded by threatening to sue the organization and local governments.
“Preparations for a suit in federal court are well underway,” Basabe told the Miami Herald. “My civil liberties are not up for debate.”
Horwich says the decision by the Miami Beach Pride board was not political. “We have had Republicans, Democrats and Independent parties in our parade and festival in the past and welcome all political views unless they are planning or have shown from the past that they are a security risk,” Horwich wrote in the text message to Basabe.
On Friday, an attorney for Basabe wrote a letter to Horwich, saying that excluding Basabe from the parade “would be willfully, knowingly and intentionally abridging [Basabe’s]
First Amendment right to free speech and to peaceably assemble on a public street.”
“Legal precedents from the federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court, have ruled that a concern that there may be physical opposition to [Basabe] is not a legal justification for violating his speech and assembly rights,” attorney Kent Harrison Robbins wrote. “Basabe must be allowed to participate in The Pride Parade and he must be notified immediately through my offices that he will be allowed to do so without any impediments.”
In his letter, Robbins noted that the parade’s sponsors include Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County and that the parade is a “demonstration of political speech on the public streets.”
“We are stressing that you must promptly comply with the law to avoid legal repercussions to you, Miami Beach Gay Pride, Inc., the City of Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County,” Robbins wrote.
A spokesperson for the city of Miami Beach declined to comment.
Horwich told the Herald that Basabe is welcome to attend the parade as a spectator, but his group has discretion to decide who can participate. People can sign up to walk or ride in the parade and pay a registration fee through the Miami Beach Pride website. Horwich told Basabe he would issue a refund if Basabe registered.
“My number one priority as chairman is safety at the parade and at the festival,” Horwich said. “The board decides who can be in the parade — which is everybody, as long as you’re not a threat to the spectators and other participants.”
Basabe shared a message that he sent to event organizers in which he accused them of allowing “extremist” protesters “to agitate the crowds and incite violence against me for political purpose” during last year’s parade.
“You have no right to exclude me, not as an individual nor as an elected official, nor may you attempt to set me up again with a bogus ‘public safety claim,’ ” Basabe wrote. “I have always attended this parade peacefully.”
Basabe has railed against LGBTQ advocacy groups during his time in office, accusing them of misrepresenting legislation that he has supported. He backed the Parental Rights in Education Act, which is derided by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law and prohibited classroom instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade and was expanded by the state through high school.
Those advocacy groups have been among Basabe’s loudest detractors. Days before last year’s Pride parade, demonstrators with Equality Florida rallied outside Basabe’s office in North Bay Village, claiming Basabe “cozied up to Ron DeSantis and his Republican cronies and stabbed us in the back.”
Joe Saunders, a former Democratic state representative and the senior political director for Equality Florida, announced last May that he would run against Basabe this year.
While campaigning in 2022, Basabe said he would champion gay rights and other liberal social causes such as gun control and abortion rights, garnering support from some local Democrats en route to a surprise victory. Basabe was mum about his own sexuality on the campaign trail despite having introduced himself as a “gay candidate” at a Florida LGBTQ Democratic Caucus conference one year earlier while running for Miami Beach City Commission.
He quickly faced backlash from those disappointed in his voting record. Then he was accused of slapping his legislative aide at an event and, last summer, accused of sexual harassment by the aide and a former intern.
Basabe denied the allegations. A law firm hired by the Florida House to investigate the slap allegation found there was “physical contact” between Basabe and his aide but that no witnesses could corroborate the incident and that it was “inconclusive” whether the slap had occurred.
A subsequent investigation into the sexual-harassment allegations said the claims could not be substantiated but that Basabe “likely should exercise better judgment regarding observing the delicate margins between the personal and professional with his subordinates.”
The two former staffers filed a lawsuit against Basabe in Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee in July. The case remains pending.