The American Family Association has announced the end of its boycott of the Walt Disney Co. after nine years.
“We feel we have made our point,” said Tim Wildmon, president of the Tupelo, Miss.-based conservative Christian organization, in a statement. “Boycotts have been a last resort for us at AFA, and the Disney boycott was started to address issues of concern to us-especially the promotion of the homosexual agenda in the culture and media. Disney has become one of the less egregious perpetrators of the homosexual agenda, so we have decided to focus our resources on more pivotal issues related to the same concerns we had with Disney.”
The Southern Baptist Convention, which officially began its boycott of the company in 1997, has not taken similar action.
Recent events led Wildmon's organization to feel that Disney has moved toward “more family-friendly kinds of entertainment. He cited Disney CEO Michael Eisner's pending departure in September and Disney's separation from Miramax, which produced movies that offended some Christians.
Wildmon also noted the company's co-production of the Christian classic The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as a positive sign.
“In the past Disney's corporate policy has kept them from targeting a religious audience, and their efforts to connect with Christians through The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is encouraging,” Wildmon said. “Though we are glad to see some positive changes, we will continue to carefully monitor Disney as we have done in the past.”
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said in an interview that he did not know how Southern Baptists will react to the step taken by the association.
“I will never try to predict what a Southern Baptist Convention is going to do,” he said. “They could very well at this convention declare victory and move on.”
Their annual gathering is in June in Nashville, Tenn.
In 1997, Southern Baptists overwhelmingly passed a resolution urging their fellow members to boycott Disney because they believed it promoted “immoral ideologies.”
“This is not an attempt to bring the Disney Company down, but to bring Southern Baptists up to the moral standard of God,” the resolution read.
Religion News Service