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At last week’s Central Florida Tourism Oversight District meeting, Board member Bridget Ziegler attended the meeting via Zoom. She only spoke once, voting to approve a report accusing Disney World of bribing the former Reedy Creek Improvement District Board. She did not appear on the screen; it only showed her initials, BZ. So, there is no way of gauging her response to a call from Celebration resident Debra McDonald for Ziegler to resign from the Board. But that was only one person and one of her many Boards. But now calls for Ziegler to resign from the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District have grown louder, including an Op-Ed from the Orlando Sentinel.
Left: Celebration, Florida, and Disney’s Pride Celebration. Credit: Eric, Flickr and Disney
Ziegler’s husband, state GOP Chair Christian Ziegler, is accused of raping a woman in Sarasota. During a police interview in November on the alleged incident, Bridget Ziegler told police that she, her husband, and the alleged victim had previously had a consensual sexual encounter.
The admission of a threesome would not necessarily have been news, except for who Bridget Ziegler is and what she has been fighting that made it news. Ziegler co-founded Moms for Liberty, a group instrumental in banning books dealing with LGBTQ+ topics. But Ziegler didn’t stop there. She was also instrumental in the passage of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, known by its critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. She was so crucial to its passes that she stood behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis when he signed it into law.
Credit: Gage Skidmore, Flickr and Disney
But new evidence has come to light that makes this situation even worse. According to the Florida Trident, police have recovered video of the alleged incident, as well as text messages between Christian Ziegler and the alleged victim before and after the incident. This has only strengthened calls for Christian Ziegler to resign as the State GOP Chairman and for Bridget Ziegler to resign her position on the Sarasota County School Board and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. Even Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has chimed in, calling for Christian Ziegler to resign but not for Bridget Ziegler to leave her positions.
But the Op-Ed in the Orlando Sentinel made the call the loudest, calling out the Zieglers’ hypocrisy. It said:
Across Florida, teachers are afraid to acknowledge to their students that same-sex relationships exist. Books are being taken off library shelves because they tell the truth about the modern implications of slavery and racism. Works of towering literary merit are being treated like smut because of brief passages describing sexual encounters. Teenaged victims of rape face the possibility that they will be forced to carry their attackers’ babies to term. Transgender Floridians are terrified they’ll lose access to the health care they depend upon. This is the world the Zieglers helped to make. Now they should live by its narrow, hateful strictures.
Credit: Disney/ Gage Skidmore, Flickr/ Canva
Last week, Bridget Ziegler resigned from her position at the Leadership Institute, a nonprofit that trains conservatives. There is no telling if Ziegler may decide to resign from the Board of DeSantis appointees that oversees Walt Disney World, but surely there is a lawyer for the Walt Disney Company taking notes on this incident for its case against the governor and his new Board.
Christian Ziegler has refused to resign as the Florida GOP’s Chairman and denied the allegations against him. The Sarasota Police Department is continuing its investigation into the rape allegation. Neither member of the Republican power couple has publicly commented on the accusations.
We will continue to update this story at Disney Fanatic.
