
By: DAVID RICE
Re: Baptists Hate MickeyMouse

Thursday, June 13, 1996  Page A 3
1996 San Francisco Examiner

I'm not going to Disney World

ROB MORSE
EXAMINER COLUMNIST

RELIGIONS can demand a lot of their followers, but the Southern
Baptist Convention has demanded the impossible of its 16 million
members.

They want their members to boycott Walt Disney enterprises. It's
a little like trying to boycott nitrogen.

Southern Baptists have to stop watching "Roseanne" on
Disney-owned ABC, renting Disney-licensed "Winnie-the-Pooh"
videos, watching quality movies from Touchstone and Miramax,
eating at McDonald's, a Disney business partner, and visiting
Disney theme parks.

Instead they'll have to visit one of those Southern Baptist
theme parks and take their disappointed kids on Tammy Faye's
Tearduct Water Thrill Ride and Mascara Mudbath.

The leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention voted this week
in New Orleans to boycott Disney because they believe Disney is
abandoning its commitment to family values. It has had discount
days for gays at Disney World, and gives benefits to companions
of gay employees.

A Southern Baptist official, who clearly had spent too much time
documenting liquid sin on Bourbon Street, was quoted as saying,
"What's next? Mickey leaves Minnie for Donald? That's Goofy."

Since when do Southern Baptist ministers regulate the affairs of
anthropomorphic ducks and mice? These guys really are going too
far.

It's not as if Disney family values ever were so great. Disney
promoted Satanism with that witch and her "Mirror, mirror on the
wall."

Satan himself made a guest appearance in "Fantasia," which later
became one of the great LSD movies of the '60s.

Snow White was a minor who lived with seven strange little men.

A mother was burned alive in "Bambi."

"Dumbo" promoted animism and bad aerodynamics.

"Pinocchio" stereotyped Italians and ridiculed big noses.

The famous "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disneyland
displays audioanimatronic pirates firing guns at soldiers,
sacking a city, tying up monks and chasing women from room to
room for immoral purposes.

These are the kinds of family values Disney traditionally has
presented in its entertainment, without religious groups
objecting.

A couple of guys take the Jungle Cruise together, and suddenly a
lot of ministers are upset.

I know a couple of Southern Baptists, and they're pretty
tolerant people with gay friends. OK, the only Southern Baptists
I know are Bill and Hillary Clinton, and they have fewer gay
friends than they used to have.

But I've got a feeling that a good number of those 16 million
Southern Baptists don't really care how Disney structures its
health plan. They probably wouldn't want to see men holding
hands at Disney World, but they probably never will - unless the
Seven Dwarfs are skipping in a circle.

So why are the Southern Baptists picking this fight? Perhaps
they feel embattled by the forces of megamedia and fast food
that Disney represents, especially when Disney appears to be
granting diplomatic recognition to groups they dislike, gays and
lesbians.

Recall that the Southern Baptists have been on the losing side
of other social issues. They split off from northern Baptists
before the Civil War over the issue of whether slave owners
could be missionaries.

They were all-white until 1951. Even now their denominations are
about 97 percent white.

Last year the Southern Baptist Convention apologized for past
acts, including slavery, segregation and racism.

"We genuinely repent for the racism of which we have been
guilty," said the declaration. "We ask forgiveness of our
African American brothers and sisters, acknowledging that our
own healing process is at stake."

That was an admirable and powerful statement. It makes the
Southern Baptist objections to gays at a theme park look, well,
Mickey Mouse.

They've picked a boycott that they may end up apologizing for,
and they definitely can't win. A basic rule of life is that you
can't keep a kid from going to McDonald's and getting a Happy
Meal with Disney characters.

You can't win this particular boycott unless boys and girls go
along with it, and they won't.

The timing of this boycott also is unfortunate. Black churches
are burning across the South, and white ministers are fretting
about pairs of men and women walking through the futuristic
displays at Epcot.

You'd think the ministers would figure out a better lesson in
values to teach their children. Sacrifice that vacation at
Disney World, sure. But help rebuild a church instead.

... ([Sault of Tarsus] + [Epileptic Seizure]) = Christianity
* Shy.David@EdenBBS.com
 * Origin: "She blinded me with science!" (1:124/9005)

