If holding your breath until you’re red in the face and stamping your foot real hard doesn’t work – and you’re a Baptist – just pretend it did and find something else to be pissed off about.
The Southern Baptist Convention voted to end its eight-year boycott of the Walt Disney Co. on Wednesday, an implicit acknowledgment that its “family values” campaign failed to bring the entertainment giant to its knees.
Officials of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, completing its two-day annual gathering in Nashville, Tenn., put the best face they could on the vote.
…The convention, meeting in Dallas in 1997, voted to boycott all parts of the Disney empire, from theme parks to movies, television shows and networks, books and retail items. The resolution cited a departure from the company’s “family values” tradition, in particular, its support of gay days at Disney theme parks and its offer of health benefits to same-sex partners of employees.
However, throughout the boycott, no national financial analyst was able to say the effort had any impact on the company, and analysts were indifferent to Wednesday’s news. Some were unaware the boycott was still in effect.
The company didn’t even know the boycott was still on until the holy announced it was over. How embarrassing.
But not to be discouraged by the fizzled attack on Disney, the righteous quickly regrouped and decided to go after our beleaguered public schools. After all, there are just not enough people trying to stick their noses there.
Delegates also approved a compromise resolution dealing with homosexuality in public schools. Anti-gay resolutions are a staple of Southern Baptist Conventions, and one had been put forward before this year’s gathering calling on Baptists to withdraw their children from public schools.
Instead, the measure that passed Wednesday encourages parents to investigate their children’s public schools to determine whether they are too accepting of homosexuality.
“Homosexual activists and their allies are devoting substantial resources and using political power to promote the acceptance among schoolchildren of homosexuality as a morally legitimate lifestyle,” the resolution says.
Too bad that one about just removing Baptist children from public schools failed. If these folks want their children taught Baptist dogma, they should send them to Baptist schools, rather than try to make public schools conform to their various viewpoints. It seems like life would be more pleasant for everyone.
