Disney extended benefits to LGBT couples in the 90s, and were hit with a right-wing boycott. The company didn’t back down an inch — and eventually prevailed.
Co., over the Sunshine State’s new “Don’t Say Gay” law and other legislation, sounds eerily familiar, it should.
Analysts saw the dispute as a culture clash between Disney, with a strong commitment to the West Coast creative community, based in Burbank, which was socially liberal, urban and cosmopolitan; and conservative Southern Baptists, later joined by other evangelical groups, like the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and the National Federation for Decency, who saw Disney as a bastion of family values under siege from within.
In the end, the boycott fizzled. Even some Southern Baptists didn’t observe the boycott, and many in Central Florida who work for the company were concerned about their jobs. A 1998 poll commissioned by the Orlando Sentinel found that only 30% of the denomination’s members participated in the boycott. So, that round went to Disney.
Then, last year, DeSantis decided it was in his political interest to pick a fight with Disney – a series of fights, actually – banging the culture war drum in order to galvanize his base, including evangelicals, in Florida and across the nation. The controversial legislation was not confined to the “Don’t Say Gay” law , prohibiting “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity.
At that, DeSantis shot back that maybe it was time to reconsider all the state government giveaways to Disney – heretofore anathema. Some civic leaders feared that the governor was threatening to kill the goose that has laid so many golden eggs in Central Florida, contributing roughly $75 billion a year to the state’s economy. In escalating rhetoric, the governor issued several gratuitous slams at Disney, telling Fox News that Disney is trying to “impose a woke ideology” on Florida.
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