The anti-Disney literature has uncovered a few interesting facts about the animated films, but mixed in with these amusing little stories is the real reason for the boycott -- homophobia. The Christian right is upset that Disney established a company policy extending insurance benefits to the live-in partners of homosexual employees, but not to unmarried partners of heterosexual employees. Disney also allows "homosexual celebrations" in the theme parks which means they allow gay groups to exercise their civil rights to organize and hold events just as they allow other social, religious and civic groups to hold organized events. To ban homosexuals from the park is against the law.

The list of complaints against Disney also includes charges that the publishing company they own, Hyperion Press, has published books about gay culture, that "Michael Eisner is quoted saying he thinks 40% of Disney's 63,000 employees are homosexual, that Disney hired a convicted child molester to direct the movie Powder, and that Disney ended a 17-year-old traditional Christian Christmas display and replaced it with a secular 'Tropical Santa' display." They are upset that Disney has taken out ads in homosexual publications and that a couple of animals in The Lion King are supposed to be gay.

The list of complaints also covers objectionable shows on Disney owned ABC-TV, Disney hiring Martin Scorsese to direct films (he directed The Last Temptation of Christ, a film several religious groups boycotted) and a Disney owned company made Priest, an "anti-Catholic" movie. The AFA called Kids, a film a Disney owned company distributes, "nihilistic pornography."

An acquaintance that works in the public relations department at Disney says, "People lay in wait for us." The employee suggests that there are too many people who have nothing better to do with their lives than to study Disney films with the hopes of finding something that they can use to embarrass the company.

The AFA has built a strong organization and their followers apparently are quite active doing what is asked of them, writing letters of complaint to TV advertisers. They have threatened boycotts of sponsors that advertise on TV shows they find objectionable. The shows are reviewed in the AFA Journal and the names and addresses of sponsors are on the pages that feature the reviews. The AFA has won some of their battles and lost others according to carefully researched articles. The articles also report the membership gives generously.

In the 1990s the AFA began an on-going Disney boycott. A recent article from them begins with, "Profits from family entertainment products and theme parks are subsidizing Disney's promotion of the homosexual agenda. A boycott -- including even their good products -- is the only way to impact the company." To remind people of the dangers of watching Disney owned TV channels, their January, 2002 online newsletter had a headline that reported somebody said the F word on the "mouse channel!"

While the AFA milks almost every naughty story they can find about the company, the Southern Baptists Convention in New Orleans expressed their displeasure of the Disney stance on gay rights by simply voting to boycott the company in 1996. In 1995 the Florida Southern Baptist Convention voted in favor of a similar boycott.

Toy Story was the object of a boycott hoax and false allegations of sexual and drug references. © Disney Enterprises, Inc.

The Toy Story Hoax
In February 1996 a student of mine said that there was an organized boycott of Toy Story (1995) by the AFA because Woody, the name of one of the film's stars, is a slang term for the penis, and Buzz, the name of the co-star, was a drug term. The story came from a local weekly newspaper. Although the student believed that there was a real boycott of Toy Story, a quick call to Pixar revealed the story was a hoax and that somebody had started it with a letter published on the Internet. Pixar sent me a copy of the letter along with a memo from the American Family Association that denied they wrote the letter or that they had ever called for a boycott of the film. A few months later the AFA Journal praised the film as it "brought a broad audience of moral Americans back to local theaters."

The hoax letter, dated December 5, 1995, claims to be from Donald Wildmon of the AFA. It called the first computer animated feature "obscene pornography disguised as 'family entertainment'..." The letter mentioned that the names of the film's stars were a sexual and a drug reference and that the film included "a sex-obsessed talking potato, a sex-obsessed Bo Peep doll who cannot keep her hands (or lips) off 'Woody,' and an Etch-a-Sketch whose 'knobs' must be 'adjusted' to produce results." It asked people to boycott the film. It also gave the wrong Website address for the AFA and said they had published an article about Toy Story in the December issue of the AFA Journal. There was no December issue and the November/December combined issue did not discuss Toy Story.