It appears as though getting having its Florida-based theme park lose its special governing and tax status has done nothing to jolt the Walt Disney Company out of its ‘woke’ universe, and instead, has led the company to double down.
According to a Wednesday report, the company is launching a children’s clothing line specifically for LGBTQ kids, with proceeds going to LGBTQ causes — but given that statistically speaking, the community is small in numbers, the effort sounds like more woke virtue signaling that anything else.
“The Disney Pride Collection was created by LGBTQIA+ employees and allies at The Walt Disney Company and is a reflection of their incredible contributions and place at the heart of the company,” Disney said in a statement. “We stand in solidarity with our LGBTQIA+ community everywhere.”
The Daily Wire adds:
In the same announcement, Disney promised to donate all of its domestic profits from the pride collection to organizations that support LGBTQ causes until the end of June, also known as “Pride Month.”
Groups designated to benefit from Disney’s sales include the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network, which says it “exists to create safe and affirming schools and learning environments for all K-12 students,” and The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention resource for LGBTQ young people.
While Disney’s pride collection clothing, for both kids and adults, comes in preparation for Pride Month, the move also comes as the company has been targeted by Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republicans. The company opposed the state’s Parental Rights in Education bill, legislation prohibiting discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms with young children.
DeSantis responded in March to the entertainment giant’s criticism of the legislation, which is now the law in Florida (though it’s being challenged in court — of course).
“[T]his is a real bill that empowers parents, it protects our kids. And for a company like Disney to say that this bill should have never passed … for them to say that them as a California-based company are going to work to take those California values and overturn a law that was duly enacted and, as you said, supported by a strong majority of Floridians, they don’t run this state. They will never run this state as long as I’m governor,” he said.
The governor signed legislation stripping away Disney’s special self-governing status the following month, saying at the time: “I’m just not comfortable having that type of agenda get special treatment in my state.”
Also in March during an all-hands meeting, a Disney executive producer told employees that the company welcomed her “not-at-all secret gay agenda.”
“They’re turning it around,” Latoya Raveaneau said in reference to Disney’s leadership. “[A]nd then all that momentum that I felt, that sense of ‘I don’t have to be afraid, let’s have these two characters kiss in the background…wherever I could, I was basically adding queerness to the show, if you see anything queer in the show, ‘The Proud Family,’ nobody would stop me and nobody was trying to stop me.”
Disney’s net income in the current quarter is down more than 47 percent year-over-year, or in the same timeframe when executives started putting woke priorities above sound business decisions. Maybe the company’s shareholders should do something about that.
