Florida Bill Banning Pride Flag at Some Disney World Locations Fails

The 2025 Florida Legislative session ended last week. While it did not finalize the state’s budget, the legislature did pass several laws that directly impact your next Walt Disney World Resort vacation, including a new law governing how tourist tax dollars are spent.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis initially proposed removing property taxes and replacing them with a larger tourism tax. While that did not pass this term, the new use of tourist tax dollars is a first step in that direction.

Despite all the laws that did pass, one failed to pass that would have directly impacted the facilities at Walt Disney World. House Bill 75 would have banned government buildings, schools, and universities from flying flags that represented a “political viewpoint,” including pride flags.

Given that the Central Florida Tourism Oversite District is now a government agency, the bill would have barred pride flags from the District’s buildings, potentially including Disney World. The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District was appointed by Governor DeSantis to replace the Reedy Creek Improvement District, creating the new governing board.

Equality Florida’s Executive Director Nadine Smith said about the defeat of the House bill:

Once again, we’ve done what many thought was impossible: not one anti-LGBTQ bill passed this session. It’s students and seniors, faith leaders and frontline workers, parents and teachers, standing together and making sure lawmakers hear us loud and clear: we will not back down. 

Equality Florida lobbied against the bill, calling it “unnecessary” and “unconstitutional.” The group also defeated a bill that prevented government agencies from using a transgender person’s preferred pronouns.

Despite this victory, that does not necessarily mean the bill won’t return during the next legislative session. State Senator Randy Fine said in March:

How would we feel if the city of Palm Bay or the city of Ormond Beach flew the Make America Great Again flag from City Hall? How would we feel if a teacher hung that in their classroom? The idea is whether it’s political viewpoints that we agree with or we disagree with, let’s keep that stuff out of government buildings.

With just a few weeks before Pride Month, Walt Disney World and its governing body can still fly their pride flags, at least for now.

What do you think of Florida banning pride flags from public buildings? Let us know in the comments.