Disney Gives Thumbs Down to Ex-Gay Movement

The shareholders of the Walt Disney Corporation have a message for folks trying to push an ex-gay agenda: sell your lies and distortion somewhere else.

A group of "ex-gay" leaders tied to the organization Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) petitioned Disney shareholders, hoping to get them to vote for a non-discrimination policy that would have included protections for "ex-gay" people. Disney shareholders sent a very loud signal -- after hearing from readers here at Change.org -- that they're not interested, and for good reason.

Recognizing "ex-gay" people in non-discrimination policies is dangerous. Why? Because to do so would legitimate ex-gay ministries and reparative therapy for homosexuality, and it would cater to an extremely anti-gay theological perspective that sexual orientation is something that can be cured. No company should be in the business of giving voice to that. Not when nearly every mainstream professional health organization has condemned ex-gay therapies as damaging, dangerous, and harmful.

PFOX makes the case that people who are "ex-gays" are reviled by society; thus, PFOX says, they need anti-discrimination protections to keep them safe from intolerance. Talk about a twisted argument. PFOX by their very own admission lives by a mantra of intolerance -- intolerance toward LGBT people.

Ex-gay Watch nails it on this issue. They write that PFOX is purposely trying to twist the lines between ideology and identity.

"It is blind at best, disingenuous at worst to say that hostility or intolerance towards ex-gays is due to their sexual orientation," writes Dave Rattigan. "It is about ideology. In the public square, the ex-gay message is rarely heard without accompanying slander of gays and their relationships. If indeed this is a sexual orientation, it is a tragedy -– not to mention an anomaly -– that it is an orientation defined overwhelmingly by hatred of and opposition to another sexual orientation."

Rattigan is right. PFOX is trying to push companies like Disney to legitimate their homophobia and extreme anti-gay views. And why not -- heck, if they can't get science on their side, they've got to go somewhere, right?

Even better news from Disney is not just that their shareholders rejected the legitimacy of ex-gay movements. Disney shareholders overwhelmingly rejected the PFOX measure, to the point where it didn't even muster three percent. Because it didn't cross that threshold, it can't be brought before shareholders for at least another five years, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

But don't expect PFOX to sit out the next five years. They're already promising to try and overload Disney with shareholders who are soldiers of Christ (at least a very conservative Christ). PFOX's Greg Quinlan told conservative One News Now that "he believes that Christians ought to retain ownership so they can exercise a more powerful voice in corporate affairs."

For now, at least, Disney shareholders made the right decision. Big time.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons