A Disturbing Trend at Disney

KEVIN HARRIS: Bill, the Disney corporation has been very vocal in opposing a Florida bill that forbids teaching transgender issues to young students – kindergarten through third grade. An inhouse video of one of their corporate meetings has gone viral. They are very blatant about making Disney productions more LGBTQ+, in particular promoting transgenderism by introducing more “queer lead characters” as they put it and eliminating references to “boys and girls” and “ladies and gentleman” at the theme parks. Over the PA or in their scripting they will no longer use references “boys and girls” or “ladies and gentlemen.” I know it calls for speculation, but do you have any idea why this is so important to our more liberal and leftist friends?

DR. CRAIG: I've puzzled over this myself, and if I try to put myself into their shoes and try to think as they do, I suspect that it has something to do with the deep American commitment that we have to individual liberty. If there's one thing that we Americans prize it is our individual liberty – to do as we want so long as we're not hurting others – and that therefore any attempt by the government or other organizations like the church to put restrictions on our liberty is regarded as anathema. So I think from the liberal perspective you see this in the debate over abortion (that a woman should have this liberty to choose to abort her unborn baby if she wants to) and similarly with regard to sexual orientation or gender issues. This is a matter of individual liberty. It's one's own choice. Now, I can understand that, but I think what bothers me so much about the Disney episode is that in this case it's not about adults making individual choices for themselves. No one is trying to inhibit that. Rather, what this is about is influencing children. It is attempting to mold or shape the attitudes and even perhaps the gender or sexual orientation of innocent children, and that I just don't understand. Why should that be such a priority for Disney? To use its productions and theme parks to help to shape the sexual orientation and gender identity of little children?

KEVIN HARRIS: It seems to me that as a company that they would want to be successful in appealing to as mainstream an audience as possible for business and for financial reasons. But executives are very bold in alienating a huge portion of their customers and don't seem to care whether they allow Disney into their families, this audience. And, by the way, there's a rumor (and it's not verified) that they've gotten a massive amount of cancellations and boycotts because of this. I wouldn’t be surprised.

DR. CRAIG: I think so. Jan and I are one of those. We had planned an anniversary trip to take our entire family, both our children as well as our grandchildren, to Disney World for a whole week this fall. We would have spent thousands of dollars on such a trip. We've canceled the trip now. We just cannot in good conscience support a corporation that targets innocent children in this way – to try to shape their sexual preferences and gender identity in this way. I must say I'm baffled, too. I don't see how this makes good business sense to needlessly alienate such a large portion of your clientele, but this isn't unique to Disney. We have seen this over and over again in the corporate and in the sports world where, for example, leagues like the NFL have adopted policies that are in line with progressivism and the values of the left at the risk of alienating the mainstream of American society.

KEVIN HARRIS: We'll know just how many cancellations and what the numbers look like in May when Disney releases their numbers to their shareholders. Until then they're making no comments on this. But there is word that there's been massive cancellations. Let's take a look at a clip of the video from Disney corporate president Karey Burke. This is what some of the controversy is all about.

KAREY BURKE: I'm here as a mother of two queer children actually, one transgender child and one pansexual child, and also as a leader. One of our execs stood up and said, “You know, we only have a handful of queer leads in our content,” and I went, “What? That can't be true.” And I realized, “Oh, it actually is true.” We have many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories and yet we don't have enough leads.

KEVIN HARRIS: Call me old-fashioned but I just can't imagine saying, “I have queer children.” Now, I know that they're trying to neutralize that term by making it positive. I guess, and maybe in all your debating training, is that a rhetorical device to take something that is supposed to be demeaning and then making it a positive? Because they say, “We need more queer leads,” “We have queer children.” They've been trying to do that for over 30 years. But you know it still sounds demeaning to me.

DR. CRAIG: Well, you're certainly right that it's a bold move to take a term of abuse and turn that into a badge of honor. But what bothered me about this clip was that for this Disney executive it was not enough to have many LGBTQ characters in their productions. There weren't enough in the leading roles. And so she wants to see more and more of these characters in leading roles. This is so clearly a direct attempt to provide alternative role models for little children so that this would appear to be a positive, happy sort of lifestyle that one might adopt. The reason this is so serious is, as was explained to me by my doctor friend Peter May in England who works in this area, the gender identity and sexual orientation of children actually is very malleable for years. It can be shaped and influenced. And what Disney does by providing these positive role models and encouraging children to explore their sexual identity, to try alternatives, to see who they really are, is to shape them in such a way that they adopt these transgender or homosexual lifestyles. And this, wholly apart from the morality of that, wholly apart from the ethics of that, is to wish upon these children a world of hurt. Those who adopt these lifestyles are in for a life full of heartache and frustration and disappointment, perhaps even self-destructive behavior. And, therefore, I think that it is not simply immoral but it's downright cruel to encourage little children to adopt lifestyles that are the opposite of their biological sex.

KEVIN HARRIS: And, by the way, the executives made these remarks in a company-wide virtual meeting a few days ago. This was mostly about Florida's parental rights and education law signed by Governor Ron DeSantis. Disney made headlines for denouncing this relatively staid legislation which states, “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade three or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate.” There isn't even a sharp political divide here. One poll showed that Florida Democratic primary voters support this law 52 to 36. What's so wrong with this bill?

DR. CRAIG: Exactly. The law is neutral in and of itself. It says there simply shall not be instruction to little children on these matters, and that would include positive or negative attitudes toward transgender persons or homosexual lifestyles. The law is neutral, and therefore I think just unobjectionable. The point is that it's parents who have the right to instruct and guide their children in this way, and the influence of Disney cartoons and animations and characters upon these malleable little children can be so powerful that I think it's quite wrong for Disney to try to pursue this. This law simply affects education, as you say. It doesn't affect Disney. It's not an anti-Disney law. It's just about public schools in Florida. And it seems to me to be neutral and unobjectionable.

KEVIN HARRIS: It may be that state legislation like this may be necessary not only to protect the rights of parents but also the rights of employees. Disney workers who don't agree with this sharp leftward turn feel that they can't speak out about it. Conservative Disney employees got together and released an open letter last week saying that Disney's response to the Florida law makes them feel like that they don't belong “in a company actively promoting a political agenda so far removed from our own.” I don't know. Are there parallels here between this and things like the cake bakers who have refused to bake certain cakes?

DR. CRAIG: Well, it's not immediately obvious to me. It seems to me that in the case of the Colorado baker the issue was one of free speech. You cannot compel people to speak in favor of views that contradict their deeply held beliefs. So it was a matter of freedom of speech. He couldn't be compelled to put pro-homosexual marriage messages on the wedding cakes that he baked. In this case, I don't see that there is any parallel issue about freedom of speech. Here it seems to me to be more a case of parental rights – that the state is usurping the authority of parents with regard to instructing their children on this matter and acting in a way that may be contrary to what the parents would want them to teach.

KEVIN HARRIS: The fact that this bill even had to be written and signed to say “do not bypass parents to get to the children” and that you cannot circumvent parents’ wishes and to indoctrinate children against parents' wishes and things like that. There are not a lot of parallels.

DR. CRAIG: It is indoctrination. That's not too strong a word that you're using.

KEVIN HARRIS: Yes. And when I read the bill, it said you can't do anything to keep this a secret basically from the parents. In other words, “Your parents don't know what they're talking about. You kids need to listen to us.”

DR. CRAIG: Jan remarked to me the other day that one of the blessings of the pandemic may be that the children all had to stay home and be schooled remotely, and so for the first time parents became aware of what their children are actually being taught in schools, and it alarmed and outraged them. They had no idea that this sort of thing was going on. And now the secret is out in the open. I think you're quite right that the attempt to conceal this from parents is also very disturbing.

KEVIN HARRIS: We, as followers of Jesus, have scriptural warrant for avoiding sexual sin and gender confusion. But being in a pluralistic society, is it a good strategy to also have secular arguments against certain ideologies? And do any come to mind?

DR. CRAIG: I think that is very important. I've tried to enunciate such a viewpoint earlier in our podcast today. You'll remember I said wholly apart from the moral issue here, no matter what you think about the morality of a homosexual or transgender lifestyle, the fact is that trying to shape malleable children to have an orientation that is contrary to their biological sex is consigning these children to a life of mental anguish and suffering and hardship, as those who pursue such lifestyles freely admit. So wholly apart from the morality of it, I think we can say that it is simply cruel – it's abusive – to do this to innocent children.

KEVIN HARRIS: You encouraged everyone on Facebook not to spend money with corporations and companies with which one has significant disagreement. We also, of course, need to be sensitive and Christ-like to those in these communities, like the LBTQ+ communities. What are some things that we can do?

DR. CRAIG: I think in this case of Disney I would encourage our listeners to cancel their Disney channel subscriptions, to not visit the theme parks, not to patronize Disney. I think they have to see that they're going to pay for this action on their part. I think someone said, I think it was Ben Shapiro said, “Go woke and go broke.” I think it reinforced that, and that's why we've canceled our trip. There's a possibility that if this hits them in their pocketbook hard enough that the CEO could reverse the policy and say, “We made a mistake.” That would be a wonderful thing. Or maybe the board would fire the head of Disney and bring in someone else that would not adopt this anti-children policy that they have. I would encourage folks simply not to patronize Disney.^[1]