Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 28, 1995 TAG: 9505260030
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Perhaps you've heard of the form letter, allegedly from infamous atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair, seeking to outlaw all religious expression on radio or television or movies or ... somewhere. A copy gets into a church, someone makes more copies, a petition drive starts and Congress gets flooded with demands from church folk to preserve religious expression.
It's a great story and one with staying power, but it is a false story.
O'Hair never ran such a campaign, and Congress never considered any such thing. In fact, if O'Hair were nearly as successful in getting publicity as the nincompoops who circulate these fake petitions year after year, she'd be queen of the universe by now.
Then there's the Procter & Gamble logo controversy that comes up about once a year. You've heard that one, too. Hysterics scream that the crescent moon and stars logo is a proclamation of Satan worship. But, alas, that one isn't true, either. The logo is just a picture of a crescent moon and stars. No satanism. Sorry to have upset you. Oops.
Now we have the "Walt Disney World promotes homosexuality" scare reviving again. A regional Christian radio network has been repeating the accusations of the American Family Association of Florida that Disney is sponsoring a big gay and lesbian get-together down at Disney World this summer.
The Disney company specifically is working to convert little children into supporters of homosexuality, the story goes. The company's management even timed the event to coincide with Gay Pride Month and publication of a book, "Growing Up Gay," being printed by a subsidiary publishing house.
Of course, since a "gay world" would have significantly fewer children in it begging their parents for trips to Disney World, I'm not sure how anybody explains the business logic of attempting to turn children into homosexuals - even if one grants that is possible. Disney is one of the most successful money-making ventures in the history of capitalism, so I find it a bit incredible that its management is now deciding to help stamp out future revenue.
This tale of homosexual promotion has been circulated nationwide for a couple of years now, mostly via Christian broadcasting. Last summer, the Disney folks explained that it would be against the law for them to deny tickets and accommodations to people based on a presumption of sexual preference or orientation. So, yes, gays and lesbians may be in the theme park at the same time as a Sunday school class or a Boy Scout troop. And one day each year, apparently, a coalition of gay and lesbians groups sponsors a trip to the theme park for its members - just like thousands of other organizations from religious denominations to labor unions to political parties to trade associations.
But, no, Disney is not sponsoring, promoting or endorsing this particular gathering. Nor has it ever done so.
The Florida branch of the American Family Association is generously offering Disney a load of free legal counsel. Disney could - if it really wanted to - keep gays and lesbians out of the park, or at the very least limit their gathering until after normal operating hours, the association contends.
Disney could "prohibit the open display of their sexual preference," the association says. Now, presumably such a ban, to be legal, would have to apply to heterosexuals, too. So I could be booted out of the park for humming the old beach song, "I'm a girl watcher"? Or for putting my arm around my wife's waist? A teen-age girl giving her boyfriend a peck on the cheek would be arrested - that's what the association suggests - for violating Florida's trespass statutes?
The association says that even though Disney management posted a sign on the entrance gates last year warning patrons that a gay organization had chosen to visit the park that day, it really was conspiring with the group to promote the event and using its employees to endorse homosexuality.
The family association's "observer" in the park during last year's event said there couldn't have been more than 5,000 homosexuals there on "Gay and Lesbian Day." Shockingly, "a majority of the homosexuals walked the streets of the theme park and socialized instead of enjoying the rides and attractions."
That raises all kinds of additional questions in my mind: A single observer kept track of the "majority" of the homosexuals in the park last June 4? And he or she could tell the "majority" didn't ride the rides? And somehow "socializing" has become a subversive activity? And exactly what offensive behaviors were homosexuals allowed to engage in that heterosexuals were not?
Parents who have visited Walt Disney World know how hard it is to keep up with the behavior of their own children, much less the tens of thousands of other visitors. To assert that "an observer" could keep track of the majority of a difficult-to-identify group of 5,000 or more is ludicrous.
The American Family Association material offers no proof that Disney is sponsoring or endorsing the "Gay and Lesbian Day." It assumes that if a salesperson helped a ticket buyer with a transaction, that amounted to participating in the event's planning. It assumes people who said they were volunteering as greeters on their days off were lying and that Disney was really paying them. It assumes that other visitors to the park that day were offended by the presence of gays and lesbians.
People who disagree with Disney policies - from publishing a particular book to making a certain movie to operating a theme park - may refuse to patronize the company or its subsidiaries. They can have the Disney Channel removed from their cable TV service, stop buying Disney home videos, forgo trips to Disney movies, cancel Walt Disney World or Disneyland vacations, and try to talk other people into doing the same.
But to do so on the basis of an unproven allegation is wrong. It is bearing false witness to spread the rumor that Disney is sponsoring these events at Walt Disney World when confronted with the utter lack of evidence to support that allegation.
Those who choose to boycott also should remember that they are going to miss a lot of good family fun from one company that stood by "family values" when the rest of Hollywood and most of the entertainment industry abandoned them.
by CNB