Ed Vitagliano

AFA Journal news editor

June 1997 – Homosexuality. Violence, Anti-Christian themes. Incest. Graphic sex. Hard drug use. Profanity and obscenity. All these now share a strange legacy with Pinocchio, Snow White, Peter Pan, and the Little Mermaid as hallmarks of the Walt Disney Company.

This radical departure from traditional Disney values is nowhere more evident than in the company’s headlong rush to promote homosexuality as normal and to profit enormously from that promotion.

Disney and the Homosexual agenda
When Disney extended company benefits to the same-sex partners of its homosexual employees, it was following a blueprint developed by Hollywood Supports, a powerful workplace advocacy group that wants to influence cultural attitudes concerning homosexuality.

Hollywood Supports was founded in 1991 by two Hollywood moguls: Barry Diller, chairman of the Home Shopping Network, and Sid Sheinberg of MCA/Universal. The group managed to influence every major U.S. film studio to offer domestic partner benefits to its employees. The group’s written benefit policy has served as a model adopted by other businesses, municipalities, and universities. By offering same-sex benefits, companies take the position that homosexual unions are morally equivalent to traditional marriage.

The Hollywood Supports/Disney chairman link is clear. Michael Eisner, current Disney chairman, and Joe Roth, chairman of Walt Disney Motion Pictures, serve on the Hollywood Supports Board of Trustees. Former Disney President Michael Ovitz is also a board member.

Hollywood Supports works behind the scenes to shape homosexual-friendly workplace policies. That covert strategy was used to strike a deal with Eisner on the benefits issue. Diller said: “I remember discussing domestic partnership with Disney at a meeting where Michael Eisner said, ‘We can’t be out in front of an issue like this, but when it’s over 50% [referring to the percentage of companies that offer such policies], that would be the right frame for the Walt Disney Co. because of the connotation that D disney is in the majority.’ I said that was fair and reasonable. And when we passed that mark, there was his company saying yes.”

Entertainment billionaire David Geffen confirms the Disney chairman’s sympathy for the gay rights movement, describing Eisner as “very homo-friendly …”

Mickey’s sympathetic ears
Perhaps another reason gay activists have found the Magic Kingdom eager to embrace their cause is the significant number of homosexuals in Disney management. One ex-Disney executive admitted in 1995 that five top creative executives, not to mention a host of underlings, are open homosexuals. These include Donald Deline, president of production, Tom Schumacher, vice-president of future animation, and then vice-president of production Lauren Lloyd.

It also appears that a large number of Disney employees throughout the company are homosexual. Elizabeth Birch, homosexual activist and executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, told the Aspen Human  Rights Summit II in Colorado that she “said to Michael Eisner, ’30% of your employees are gay,’ and he said, ‘You’re wrong, Elizabeth. It’s 40%.’” John Dreyer of Disney’s Corporate Communications office has officially denied the veracity of Birch’s quote, but Robert L. Williams, president of Disney’s homosexual employee group, agreed with the estimate.

Disney uses ABC to promote agenda
In the last year the homosexual revolution at Disney has become more public. ABC – purchased by D disney in 1996 – leads the television networks in the number of prime-time gay characters. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a homosexual media watchdog group, stated in March, 1997, that of the 29 homosexual, bisexual, and transgender regular characters on prime-time television – 13 were on ABC. NBC came in a distant second place with six.

Likely the growing number of homosexuals on ABC programming is no coincidence. ABC insiders told the Wall Street journal that since the buy-out, Disney’s handling of ABC is nothing less than “micromanagement” of the network. Eisner has assured company shareholders that Disney would “make substantial contributions to the success” of ABC. And adoring to Daily Variety, Eisner’s contributions would include his personal development of a successful prime-time line-up for ABC.

Eisner’s plan for the network apparently in clouds a growing homosexual presence, a point made clear when he attempted to pressure the producer of a top prime-time show to add a gay couple as regulars. The producer and series star refused.

However, Eisner found a co-hort in Ellen DeGeneres, star of the popular sitcom Ellen. Early in the 1996 fall TV season DeGeneres began to tease the audience that her character on the show might declare herself a lesbian, thus becoming the first TV series to have a homosexual lead character. The storyline, including the final script in which Ellen openly declares her homosexuality, was approved by Eisner.

Ellen producers admitted they wanted the show to encourage young people who were confused about their sexual orientation to have the courage to come out just as Ellen did. Executive Producer Dava Savel said, “If this episode helps some child in the Midwest with their sexual identification , we’ve done our job.”

Another part of Savel’s “job” was reaching middle America with the message that homosexuality is OK. For that task she chose Oprah Winfrey to play Ellen’s therapist. “I suggested Oprah …” Savel said. “She’s so well liked by the American people, it was perfect to have someone like her who connects with middle America, where if Oprah said it was OK, then it was OK.”

The choice of using comedy to introduce prime-time’s first homosexual lead also suggests a calculated move on Disney’s part. Actor Michael Boatman, who plays homosexual activist Carter Heywood on Spin City, another Disney/ABC sitcom that stars Michael J. Fox, said comedies are perfect vehicles for controversial subjects like homosexuality. Boatman told TV Guide, “The best way to slide these controversial issues under America’s doorstep, into their living rooms, is to have them start laughing first. Suddenly they find themselves, if not accepting new ideas, certainly more willing to discuss them.”

Dollars and depravity
In normalizing the homosexual lifestyle, Disney has discovered a successful mix of mission and money. Homosexuals form a wealthy and identity-conscious consumer group – and Disney knows it. Offering movies, books, and TV shows with gay themes guarantees the company a loyal homosexual following. For example, one study  showed that gays and lesbians are avid film fans – more than three times as likely as the general population to see two movies a month.

Disney also exploits their gay connection by welcoming “Gay and Lesbian Day at the Magical Kingdom (that Walt Built).” Organizers of the annual celebration at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, estimate that the economic impact to the city is $20 million, much of that going into Disney’s bank account.

Hyperion Press is another Disney subsidiary which pushes homosexuality. It has published the autobiography of well-known transvestite entertainer RuPaul, as well as the book Growing Up Gay, aimed at the so-called homosexual children of heterosexual parents.

The company is also in the process of producing a series targeting the homosexual “jet-set.” According to the homosexual magazine New York Native, gays generally travel more and take more vacations than any other demographic group, to the tune of $17 billion a year. And Hyperion aims to make gay travel even easier, creating a series entitled Out & About Gay Travel Guides.

The authors of the guides, David Alport and Billy Kolber-Stuart, already produce an Out & About newsletter which alerts readers to the “sexual temperature” of certain gay destinations. According to USA Today, for example, the description of one Palm Springs gay resort reads: Casual, clean, and small, with as frisky daytime atmosphere as one could find in a legitimate establishment … nudity is encouraged and practiced by the management. Sexual temperature: very high.”

With the winds of change blowing across America’s moral landscape, Disney’s marketing American – even many Christians – appear to be sleeping while the homosexual revolution overthrows Judeo-Christian culture.

So, Disney enjoys the best of both marketing worlds. On one hand, the company reaps a bonanza from homosexuals. At the same time, Disney keeps American families feeding at their trough with traditional entertainment products, such as animated films and theme parks.

If middle America continues to support Disney’s good products, the company will continue to use that money to subsidize the normalization of homosexuality.

While a day at Disney W world may not seem like a visit to Sodom and Gomorrah, it might just take us there.  

Sources used in preparing this report include:
The Advocate, 4/4/95; 4/18/95; 8/20/96; 3/4/97; Associated Press, 6/29/95’ 12/30/96; Buzz, 5/95; Daily Variety, 5/15/94; 10/12/94; 1/27/95; 5/16/95; 9/13/95;11/3/95; 1/30/96; 1/10/97;1/20/97; 1/21/97; Encounters  Magazine, 7/96; Entertainment Weekly, 6/10/94; Family Issues Alert, 3/30/95; Glamour, 8/9/94; Herald-Tribune (Sarasota, Florida), 10/8/95; Hollywood Supports Policy Statement; Hollywood Supports internet site; Los Angeles Times, 10/18/96; Newsweek, 2/20/95; New  York Native, 6/12/95; 12/23/96; Orlando Weekly 6/6-12/96; Press Enterprise, 12/28/93; Philadelphia Gay News 7/5-11/96, Seventh Annual Gay & Lesbian Day At the Magical Kingdom Internet site; Southern Voice 10/3/96; Spy, May/June, 95. TV Guide, 3/8/97: 3/29/97; US, 4/97; USA Today, 1/22/97; Wall Street Journal, 9/96; 3/30/95; Washington Times, 10/25/95

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Disney facts

• ABC”s Relativity has shown what is perhaps the most passionate lesbian sexual encounter so far on network TV. 
• Danzig, an occultic rock band, is signed to a Disney record label. Their music is laced with satanic themes.
• Disney helped underwrite the 1993 Hollywood benefit for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
• Disney signed Martin Scorsese, director of The Last Temptation of Christ, Casino, Taxi Driver, and many other films to a 4-year contract.
• Disney hired a convicted child molester to direct its movie Powder.
• Mark Gill, the president of Miramar Films, a wholly-owned Disney subsidiary, admitted that his company thrives on racy, often violent promotion for its movies.
• Priest (Miramax) is a pro-homosexual movie which depicts five Catholic priests as dysfunctional and blames their problems on Church teachings. One priest is a homosexual; a second an adulterer; a third an alcoholic; a fourth demented; and the fifth just plain mean and vicious. The film is blatantly anti-Christian.
• Other objections films from Disney subsidiaries included Dogma (homosexuality), Chasing Amy (lesbianism), Pulp Fiction (sex & violence), Color of Night (sex), Clerks (graphic language), Chicks in White Satin (lesbianism), Lie Down with Dogs (homosexuality), The House of Yes (incest).
• Disney/Miramax originally purchased and intended to distribute Kids, the pornographic movie about early teen sex and drug abuse. Miramar later formed an independent company to distribute the film. It was rated NC-17 (formerly X) by the MPAA.