Group Touting Family Values Protests at Disney Offices

About 120 people marching under the banner of a “pro-family coalition” assembled within shouting distance of the Team Disney corporate headquarters Friday to repeat charges of a pro-gay bias by the entertainment giant.

The protesters echoed the views of several groups that have called for boycotts of Disney entities over issues such as the company’s health benefits for partners of gay employees, actress Ellen DeGeneris’ coming out as a lesbian on her program on Disney-owned ABC, and the unofficial Gay Days at Disney World.

“We want Mickey to come home,” said talk-show host Mason Weaver of Oceanside, one of several speakers at a sidewalk news conference. “We don’t want him to have a dress when he gets here.”

The sculptured palms at the Walt Disney Studios’ Alameda Avenue entrance afforded no shade for the crowd--far smaller than organizers had hoped--that listened in 100-degrees-plus heat to Christian radio personality Warren Duffy pray that God would counteract “influences from the pit of hell” in the Disney stronghold.

Nonetheless, Disney workers set out tables with water, soft drinks and cookies for the protesters, and this drew thanks from Cameron Pate of the Washington-based Concerned Women for America, who emceed the news conference.

Pate said in an interview that there has been no further communication between Concerned Women, American Family Assn. and other Disney boycott backers since a July 23 meeting in Washington, D.C., that both sides said was unsatisfactory.

Dialogue by press release has heightened, however, since then. On Friday, the Disney corporate office issued a longer-than-usual written response to boycott backers.

Calling the company “the world’s leading family entertainment company,” the statement said, “In the atmosphere of free expression, we will always try to promote moral ideologies in our programming. And we will remain committed to certain values in our everyday life, values that include tolerance and compassion and respect for everybody.”

Alveda Celeste King of Atlanta, Ga., founder of King for America and a niece of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., repeated her organization’s call in July for a Disney boycott by African Americans. She also distributed a press release objecting to what she called three “pro-homosexual” bills in the California State Assembly.

In response, Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), whose bill AB310 was one of those protested, issued a press release saying that her bill seeks to protect women from sexual harassment at religious organizations. Kuehl also defended Disney’s employment policies and said the company was “acting in the highest spirit of family values” by offering entertainment for a broad range of audiences.