Southern Baptists end eight-year boycott of Disney

Van PayneSouthern Baptist Convention

Messengers convene at the June 21-22 Southern Baptist Convention at the Gaylord Entertainment Center in Nashville, Tenn. They voted overwhelmingly June 22 to end their eight-year boycott of the Walt Disney Co., claiming the protest had an impact in making the company more family-friendly.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Southern Baptists voted overwhelmingly June 22 to end their eight-year boycott of the Walt Disney Co., claiming the protest had an impact in making the company more family-friendly.

“The boycott has communicated effectively our displeasure concerning products and policies that violate moral righteousness and traditional family values,” reads the resolution adopted on the last day of the denomination’s two-day meeting. “For a boycott to be effective, it must be specifically targeted and of limited duration.”

A continual debate

The statement follows similar recent action taken by the American Family Association, a conservative religious group. It was adopted on the same day that Southern Baptists also voiced concern about children’s education, stem cell research and “judicial activism.”

As it did when the boycott began, the Disney decision continued to be a matter of debate. Some pointed to positive changes, including the pending departure of chief executive Michael Eisner and the production of more entertainment that is considered family-friendly.

“I think it’s time for us to move on,” said Wiley Drake, a Buena Park, Calif., pastor who unsuccessfully proposed a boycott resolution in 1996 before one was approved the following year.

“I think that Disney has made some good moves,” he said in an interview.

Richard Land, president of the denomination’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said he thinks the ending of the boycott will be supported by most Southern Baptists.

“Part of the problem from the very beginning was that Disney for generations had asked to be judged by a different standard, that they were the family-friendly place, and under Eisner they became, at best, no better than any other sleazy Hollywood entertainment conglomerate,” he said in an interview.

Like the American Family Association, whose boycott ended in May, Land and some other Southern Baptist leaders said they are hopeful that the company’s co-production of the Christian classic The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is another positive sign.

But not everyone was happy with the boycott’s end.

“For years, Disney had moved from Bambi to bimbos – from the Mickey Mouse club and wholesome family programming to an open and blatant disregard to the values and virtues we hold dear,” said Bill Dodson of Graves County, Ky., speaking on the convention floor. “We were not wrong in ‘97 and we should not be wrong now. This old warrior isn’t ready to stop fighting the battle just yet.”

In the 1997 resolution, Southern Baptists urged their fellow members to boycott Disney because they believed it promoted “immoral ideologies,” demonstrated in part by policies and entertainment programs they believed favored gay rights.

“This is not an attempt to bring the Disney Company down, but to bring Southern Baptists up to the moral standard of God,” the old resolution read. The Assemblies of God denomination joined the boycott but have since dropped out.