Residents oppose Florida's new laws with a day of 'joyful resistance' in West Palm Beach

WEST PALM BEACH — Music, laughter and the smell of barbecue filled the air at West Palm Beach's Howard Park on Saturday afternoon. Dozens of people gathered under the shade of a gazebo, not for a summer cookout or birthday celebration, but for an act of "joyful resistance" on the same day that more than 200 laws went into effect in Florida.

The new laws — including permitless concealed carry, along with a six-week abortion ban and a clampdown on undocumented workers — inspired strong feelings. But sometimes the best protest doesn't involve marching or chanting, said David Rae, one of the event's organizers.

Joyful resistance, he said, is all about gathering as a community, educating each other on important topics and offering reasons to be optimistic. That was the focus of Saturday's event, which coincided with demonstrations throughout the state.

"So many of us know how to express our anger when it comes to politics, but we believe that acts of joy, acts of happiness and acts of solidarity are true rebellion," Rae said.

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Florida for All, an umbrella organization for at least half a dozen groups throughout the state, spearheaded the events Saturday, including gatherings in Jacksonville, St. Petersburg, Tallahassee, Tampa and Homestead.

Locally, Maurice Hayes and Irwin Cineus, from Boynton Strong Community Outreach and Training, cooked up ribs, chicken, baked beans and mac and cheese for event-goers and anyone who walked by hungry.

Rohi's Readery, a children's bookstore based in West Palm Beach, filled a table with free books, and people of all ages played games, shared smiles and discussed their fears and hopes for the future.

"We believe there's more that connects us than separates us, and today is to remind us of that," Rae said.

Florida for All released a statement on social media in tandem with the rally.

"We believe that every Floridian, no matter the color of our skin, where we come from, who we are, or who we love, deserves the freedom to provide a good life for ourselves and our families. The thing about freedom is that it doesn’t belong to the Governor, lawmakers, or to any one individual," the group said.

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'Our duty is to do no harm.' Palm Beach County residents share concerns about laws on immigration, permitless gun carry

Jacquelyn Wheeler helped to pass out petitions at Saturday's event in West Palm Beach — one related to limiting government interference with abortion, and the other calling for clean and healthy water in Florida.

Wheeler, a political organizer for 1199SEIU, the largest union of healthcare workers in Florida, said she was also concerned about the new law targeting undocumented immigrants. SEIU Florida is under the "Florida for All" umbrella.

"The hospitals have to ask you your immigration status," she said. "Who cares what your immigration status is if you're sick and need help? Our duty is to do no harm."

The Florida for All coalition also includes Florida Rising, "a statewide voting rights and grassroots organizing group," along with Dream Defenders, which targets gun violence and mass incarceration, among other causes.

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Shacoya Key is a member of both groups. During this weekend's event, Key said she was most concerned about the permitless carry law and whether it would lead to more needless death.

How many people would start carrying a concealed firearm with no training, and how many people might mistakenly think that Florida's other gun laws are now negated?

"We are educating everybody on these laws that are in effect as of today," she said. "We are living in a new Florida as of today."

Which of Florida's new laws is being opposed?

Florida for All listed nearly a dozen bills that became law Saturday, calling them harmful and divisive. Here is the organization's list and its description for each law:

• HB 543: "No background check or training will be required to carry a concealed weapon."

• HB 1069: "Silences educators by prohibiting any instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity through 8th grade and forbids the requirement of honoring pronouns and names of students or faculty that don't correspond to biological sex."

• HB 1417: "Removes many local housing protections that have been passed by counties and cities throughout Florida. Preempts all local protections for renters throughout Florida, including Tenants' Bill of Rights Ordinances, regulation of rent increases or lease terminations, caps on security deposits, etc."

• SB 1616: "Exemption to the state's Sunshine Laws allowing top officials, including Governor DeSantis, to shield all records relating to his travel from the public, even retroactively, and includes hiding the names of those with whom he travels. Also exempts from public disclosure visitor logs from the Governor's Mansion, making it harder to understand who is trying to influence public policy in the Governor's taxpayer-funded home."

• SB 1718: "Forces employers with 25 or more employees to use E-Verify. Forces hospitals that take Medicaid to ask about immigration status. Invalidates legal drivers' licenses issued from other states to undocumented immigrants, preempts community ID funding and allocates $12 million for 'relocation' costs of immigrants. Allows the collection of DNA of undocumented immigrants and makes traveling into the state with an undocumented immigrant a felony."

• HB 1: "Private school vouchers for all routes billions of taxpayer dollars away from public schools towards a massive corporate voucher school handout. These voucher schools are not subject to the same oversight as public schools and may discriminate against Floridians based on religion, disability status, gender identity, sexual orientation, and more."

• HB 133: "Written by out-of-state lobbyists and passed during an affordable housing crisis, this bill attacks tenants by allowing landlords to charge a perpetual, nonrefundable, limitless fee in lieu of a security deposit."

• SB 256: " Among other union-busting tactics, the bill prevents union fees from being deducted from paychecks and serves as political payback that will harm workers and their ability to fight for better wages and safer workplaces."

• SB 266: "Prohibits public colleges and universities from spending any state or federal dollars on programs that advocate for DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) policies and severely restricts core general education content. Eliminates tenure protections, hurting academic freedom and viewpoint diversity. Bans DEI in hiring or promotion while shifting all faculty hiring to Boards of Trustees. Eliminates gender protections from anti-discrimination funding policies."

• SB 300: "Bans abortion beyond six weeks before most people realize they are pregnant, requiring two in-person appointments at least 24 hours apart to access care; includes largely unworkable exceptions up to 15 weeks. Allocates $25 million annually to fund anti-abortion pregnancy centers, not staffed by medical professionals, not bound by HIPAA, and established to talk patients out of accessing an abortion."

Giuseppe Sabella is a community reporter at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at gsabella@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism and subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Why are some Palm Beach County residents opposing Florida's new laws?