By Paul Weyrich*

August 1997 – Three Cheers for the Southern Baptists. They have voted overwhelmingly at their annual meeting of Messengers, or delegates from the state organizations, to boycott the Disney Company to protest what the denomination called “immoral ideologies.”

Since Michael Eisner took over Disney in 1984 he has transformed the company. It no longer primarily provides family entertainment but is now a conglomerate which is constantly pushing the sexual envelope. A subsidiary company produced the perverted movie Priest. Disney properties have been having “Gay Days” at their amusement parks, the company itself gives benefits to homosexual partners, and, of course, Disney owns ABC Television, the home of Ellen which featured her coming out of the closet to push her lesbian relationship.

The president of the Southern Baptists, Tom Elliff, compared watching ABC television to “spending time with a prostitute.” The Southern Baptists didn’t make this move out of the blue. For years, leaders of that denomination have been expressing concern to the Disney Company, but they were told to forget it. Last year at this time, the Southern Baptists warned Disney that a boycott was possible if Disney kept going down the path they were on. Disney replied by going even further down that path toward moral degeneration.

Of course the boycott is controversial. The usual suspects are whining that conservative Christians are trying to shove their values down the throats of the rest of the society. Wrong. It is the perversion lobby which has shoved its values down the throats of the American public.

Supposedly in America we have freedom of choice. Well, the right of people to choose not to buy a product, or not to watch a network, or not to patronize an amusement park, is just as appropriate as agreeing to do all of the above.

The politicians are scared to death of this issue. Rep. Jim Nussle, who is running as the conservative candidate for Conference Secretary next week in the House, declined to take a position. Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, appearing on Direct Line last night, suggested that perhaps a boycott wasn’t the proper way for Christians to behave.

The most fear-driven quote came from Gov. Mike Huckabee, a past-president of the Arkansas Southern Baptists. Said the Governor of Arkansas, forgetting, as usual, from whence he came, “I have enough trouble keeping up with my own relationship to Jesus Christ that I really don’t have time to keep up with someone else’s relationship to Mickey Mouse.”

And, of course, there is Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who said, “I think in America and in the community we have to be kind and compassionate and not be judgmental.” They all fear crossing the big media lest they be labeled as “intolerant,” which is now the only sin left in the theology of liberalism.

There you have it. That is exactly why we are in the state we are in. 

All of the people who believe in virtues have allowed themselves to be pushed to the wall by the suggestion of the purveyors of pornography that any reaction against what they are doing to the society, and especially to the children they always profess to care so much about, is unkind and inappropriate, and not in keeping with religious teaching.

What nonsense! These people would have those of us who care about society be nicer than God. The God of the Old Testament had little tolerance for perversion. Ask the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah – if you happen to run into any. Christ in the New Testament was anything but gentle with people He believed were scandalous. Those parts of the Scriptures are conveniently forgotten as the perversion pushers tell Christians and others that if they protest against what is happening they really are anti-religious. What utter nonsense!

A boycott is a mild form of protest compared with what ought to be done. Nevertheless, it is a welcome step. I hope now that other denominations will follow in support. Of course, the leaders of the Southern Baptists can’t control their membership. There are no doubt some Southern Baptists who value Mickey Mouse over their church. But if there are enough moral people left in the country they will join with the Baptists, and Disney will begin to feel the pinch. When that happens, Disney will begin to negotiate.

One wonders where the Catholic bishops will be in all of this. Of course, Eisner, in anticipation of such a time as this, shrewdly put the priest-president of Georgetown University on his board of directors.

That was supposed to provide cover for Eisner’s evil doings. The problem is that Georgetown is about as Catholic as Dennis Rodman is well-groomed. Maybe the Catholic bishops, who love to meddle in domestic politics when it comes to welfare reform and unilateral disarmament, will actually stand up for morality and tell their people, to the extent that anyone pays attention to bishops in the Catholic Church any more, that they should join with the Baptists.

And then there are the Mormons. The family is at the center of the Mormon Church. Surely the Mormon leadership cannot be pleased with what Disney has done. In the words of columnist and TV commentator Pat Buchanan: “The characters who have taken over Disney, have taken a company with a tremendous pro-family, wholesome name, and put it through the muck and mud.” Maybe, just maybe, the Mormons, who don’t like confrontation, will join in this fight. The same point can be made for the Missouri Synod Lutherans, the various Eastern Orthodox churches and so on down the line.

In theory at least, there are enough people in this country who still pay lip service to traditional morality that if a large percentage of them would support the Southern Baptist boycott it could bring Disney to its knees.

It remains to be seen if people of values have become so weak they cannot stand up and defend their position, even if it just means not patronizing certain business enterprises. After all, that can be done in silence. Even the government need not know if a family decides to go to an alternative amusement park or to watch another channel or to rent a movie from a different company. No one need put up any signs or take a public stand.

Still, if enough people make such private decisions, it will have a tremendous impact.

The Southern Baptists have shown the way. Now it is up to the rest of us to show them
our support.  

* Paul Weyrich, an ordained Catholic deacon, is host and commentator on NET and president of Free Congress Foundation.