DeSantis vs. Disney

Quite simply he's confident Disney will bend the knee or do nothing tangible in response to keep their tax breaks and other nice carveouts & exemptions granted by the state government. Its not the worst bet, tbh, particularly if they can keep their workforce in line and people keep coming to the parks.

 

People will still come to the parks, there will be no slow down in that. Even with some of the parent groups that I saw on the news talking about boycotting Disney because they have become too "woke".

However, Disney is not in a position to say "screw it" and relocate. If they want to keep their special business perks, the smart move would be just to move their posturing back to the middle and be less political. They don't have to wear their wokeness on their sleeve to support those causes.
Or, they won't and have to go through Orange County for development, building permits and inspections. That's worse than any backlash from the gay community.

 

There has been conservative anger about Disney for years based upon various things, to include that Disney is too liberal, had Gay Pride events, was putting sexual messages in their cartoons, etc. From what I can tell, Disney has actually made more contributions to Republicans than Democrats. Politico reported that Disney gave $50,000 to DeSantis. Some people have been lamenting that Disney has become political, but it seems to me like it has been political for some time.

 

And then there’s this: “In a show of support for the LGBTQ community, Disney heirs have pledged $500,000 to the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

Standing in solidarity with their child, Charlee Corra, who has come out publicly as transgender, Roy P. Disney and his wife Sheri are speaking out against passing legislation like Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill.”

 

I'm old enough to remember the "gay days" "controversy" at Disney and the DeVos family owning a women's sports team in Orlando they didnt want gays to attend.

 

I didn't remember it went back that far. Just looked it up and it started in 1991 but apparently was not officially sanctioned by Disney? This is the relevant section of the Wikipedia entry:

Gay Days have attracted criticism from religious groups. While Disney does not sanction Gay Days (and officially tells employees to treat it as any other summer day), conservative Christian groups accuse Disney of not doing anything to stop the event. The Southern Baptist Convention boycotted Disney for eight years. The Florida Family Association flew banner planes one year warning families of gay events at Disney that weekend, citing emails from people nationwide who unknowingly booked their vacation during Gay Days.[2] Janet Porter, president of the Christian organization "Faith 2 Action", is highly critical of the event. She encouraged families to re-think visiting Walt Disney World. She told families to expect to see "cross-dressing men parading public displays of perversion" during their visit.[3][1]

 

This is like FSU vs UGA if you ask me. I'm rooting for a meteor.

 

Yeah, Disney was sort of hands off about it. They didnt endorse or sponsor it, and they didnt tell gays not to come either. I remember some people being like "what if my kid sees two men holding hands, they might turn gay" ... these bozos are still afraid of the same stuff.

 

That's basically what those people wanted, yeah!

 

Its also pretty funny that the Christians did more to advertise "gay days" than Disney or Gays did:

 

One thing that is frustrating to me about this stuff is that many (not all to be fair) on the right who have even more recently opposed LGBTQ rights (or still do but see it as a losing issue these days) - have apparently developed amnesia about it. I was listening to a radio show host the other day (I think it was Mark Levin) who was really mad about Disney being so pro LGBTQ. He said something like, "what happened to the live and let live days when peoples' sexuality and sex lives was their own business!?" I wasn't sure whether to laugh or yell at my radio, as I was wondering when he thinks that was how things were in America.

To me, it seems similar to the folks who were dragged kicking and screaming to admit the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow and then suddenly didn't want to talk about race anymore since we resolved all that a long time ago. I get that we all learn and change, and that's fine. But some want to act as if these sorts of things never happened in the first place and seem to be confused about why advocacy is still needed.

 

As gov what does he want WD to do?

 

I think conservatives have made tactical retreats at times on the anti-gay stuff, but its never far below the surface. In the 70s you had Anita Bryant and the backlash to the sexual revolution and gay rights, in the 80s you had AIDs which ramped up homophobia basically until Magic Johnson got it, in the 90s you had this stuff here and stuff like DOMA in response to some states allowing or debating civil unions, in the 2000s you had states trying to ban gay marriage in 2004. Prop 8 in the late 2000s, up to the present. Clearly the homophobes have been reinvigorated because of the transformation of the courts, they think there is blood in the water.

 

Interesting tid bit, some of you may remember an event held at Disney called "Night of Joy." It was a Christian themed grad nite of sorts, with church groups and Christian music groups that was held after hours. They stopped doing it because it they decided that they didn't want to keep taking the losses from shoplifting.

 

I got kicked out of Disney on Grad Night for drinking

 

With Disney removing gender roles from the park it will be confusing for little girls when Cinderella shows up with a beard and deep voice. And says I can no longer cal you a princess.

Disney Will No Longer Call Park Guests 'Princess'