The Rainbow Mafia is foundering – even at Disneyland!
I never thought I'd live to see the day when the American public finally pushed back effectively against the LGBT Brownshirt Bully-Culture, but it's happening right now on an impressive scale – even at Disney!
First let's review recent news on the issue. On May 31, 2024, the Washington Stand published an article titled, "Companies Scrap Over-the-Top Pride Plans to Escape June's Backlash for Business." It stated: "It wasn't that long ago that the mainstream media mocked conservatives for trying to flex their consumer muscle. Not anymore. A year removed from the Bud Light fiasco that sparked a thousand boycotts, even USA Today is admitting – the grassroots strategy worked. LGBT Pride, at least as a wholesale business concept, is dead. For companies brave (or foolish) enough to test Americans' outrage in 2024, one thing is for certain: there's no pot of gold at the end of this June's rainbow. To most CEOs' surprise, the wave of national fury over trans activism hasn't just remained steady over the past 14 months – it's exploded in strength and scope." [Emphasis added.]
Jump to the present to see just how true that assessment was. On June 27 Bloomberg ran an article whose title and opening line tell the whole story: "Is This the Summer That Humbled Gay Pride? Believing companies would somehow remain loyal to LGBTQ+ consumers following last year's intense pushback was wishful thinking." From the article: "According to The Business of Fashion – an industry news site – Nike Inc. 'is not releasing a Pride-themed collection or targeted ad campaign" for the first time since 1999. Target hasn't eliminated LGBTQ+ products for Pride month but not all of its estimated 2,000 stores will carry them. …
"The biggest lesson marketers took away last year is the fate of Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light. A niche campaign featuring Dylan Mulvaney, a trans woman actor, became the object of vitriol and a boycott from conservative groups, leading to a more widespread backlash against the beer. Bud Light sales in the U.S. are down 28% from 2023, when it lost its top rank to Modelo Especial, a Mexican brew, amid the controversy. With market share and profits at risk, companies recoiled from LGBTQ+ consumers."
You can tell from the way these far-left journalists minimize the extent of the scale-back – at Target, for example, and their spin that the corporate "recoil" is from "LGBTQ+ consumers" rather than the LGBT agenda – just how painful it is for the media to admit any diminution at all in "pride" power.
But it gets better. On June 28 the AP ran a story titled "Tractor Supply is ending DEI and climate efforts after conservative backlash online." It reads, "Tractor Supply said it would be eliminating all of its diversity, equity and inclusion roles while retiring current DEI goals ... [and] added that it would 'stop sponsoring nonbusiness activities' such as Pride festivals or voting campaigns – and no longer submit data to the Human Rights Campaign, the largest advocacy group for LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S." This is a HUGE step toward a return to normalcy in the business world and a major blow to the the LGBT cultural hegemon.
The most significant evidence for me, however, was what I saw at my own eyes at Disneyland (the Anaheim campus) on Gay Pride Day itself, June 28, 2024. As it happens, my wife and I recently reconnected with a 9-year-old granddaughter we haven't seen or spoken to in five or six years. She lives in Southern California within driving distance of Disneyland, and her greatest wish as we planned a reunion was to have a Princess Day at the park. So that's what we did. I bought tickets for the 27th and 28th without any thought on my part about the significance of the 28th. Strange as it might seem considering my 30 years of pro-family activism, I didn't mentally connect the fact that we'd be there on "Gay Pride Day" – so completely separate in my mind are family matters and politics.
When, the day before, I suddenly did realize the timing, I had a moment of dread that we would be engulfed in "pride" propaganda on our special day. But when we reached the park that morning of the 27th there was really nothing but a few rainbow accent banners near the entrance to placate the woke (without any other indication that it was LGBT-related), despite it being "Pride Month." The next day – Pride Day – the most sacred day on the woke calendar – the only difference was the addition of a single flower arrangement in the shape of Mickey ears next to a 2x3 informational sign outside the park in the shopping area called Downtown Disney, off to the side of the main walkway next to the ever-present Jehovah's Witness team and display. I was frankly astonished – and pleased – that even Disney had largely shut out the faux "pride" pushers. There was a little more wokeness on the Disneyland App, but the overall real-world experience was gloriously non-woke.
Now, some readers will be disappointed that I went to Disneyland at all, but it has always been my policy to reward the good even while punishing the bad in the entities I boycott. I have no use for the Disney Corporation generally speaking, but Disneyland remains (even on Gay Pride Day!) the most hetero-normative entertainment venue in the world. Every single day it is open, that park hosts a gigantic teeming mass of normal families in normal dad/mom/kids configurations and boy/girl romantic duos. Even on Gay Pride Day 2024, people with obvious same-sex attraction disorder were considerably more rare than, for example, people in wheelchairs (like my wife).
In contrast, Disney World in Florida is in many ways just another theme park, but Walt's spirit seems still to reside, and thrive, at Disneyland. He's no doubt been spinning in his grave for years now over the rise of anti-family quackery in the company he founded, but if so, his pain is likely lessened recently by the rising tsunami of public demands for a return to family-centered normalcy across America.
When I got my start in pro-family activism during the Reagan Revolution the effort to stop the LGBT agenda was a mostly Christian thing. The rest of society didn't see or believe where we Christian activists knew it was all headed. But thankfully, when the hard left finally achieved most of what we tried to prevent, the MAGA populist movement was just hitting its stride and decided enough was enough. The addition of their voices and resources to the cause of restoring the natural family to cultural primacy has now obviously tipped the scales.
Thank God that the Rainbow Mafia appears finally to have been routed. Let's all hope and pray that all the LGBTs retreat fully to the discrete privacy-cherishing sub-cultures we were always willing to tolerate (within reason) – and did largely tolerate in the 1940s and '50s.
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