Subj: ACTION ALERT: Email Disney! Date: Mon, Jul 01, 1996 20:04 EDT From: [removed at sender's request 11/14/99]

[ Moderator Note: This is a similar alert to one sent a few weeks ago. But, this time Disney is asking to hear from ANYONE who supports their gay-inclusive policies. It sounds like they are really being bombarded with a lot of hate mail or calls.

You can email your SUPPORT for their gay-inclusive policies to:

brad_bergman@studio.disney.com

Please email NOW-- even one or two sentences of support. It will take just a few seconds! Look what the Baptists are reporting:

----- Begin Included Message -----

RPD 1407 Friday, June 28, 1996 5:08pm

Internet appeal for Disney sent to homosexual groups

By Art Toalston, Baptist Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--An Internet solicitation of support from homosexual activists for the Walt Disney Company has made its way from a Disney vice president's office across the country.

The electronic-mail (e-mail) message, which originated in the office of Disney Vice President for Studio Operations Reid Cline on June 13, states: "If anyone wants to write to Disney to support them in light of the Southern Baptist Convention's condemnation yesterday, you may write to: Michael Eisner, c/o S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521-1010, (818) 560-2431."

Eisner is Disney's chairman and CEO. The e-mail is signed by a secretary in Cline's office at Disney, Brad Bergman, with the Internet address reading: brad_bergman@studio.disney.com

"We don't have any comment" was the response of a Disney spokeswoman after the corporate communications office there received a faxed copy of the e-mail appeal and a response by Bill Merrell, SBC Executive Committee vice president for convention relations.

Said Merrell: "It is yet another sad reflection of the state of Disney -- that a Disney vice president's office must turn to the homosexual Internet crowd to solicit support for the company's drift away from family values and its buckling to the homosexual-activist agenda.

"It is noteworthy that Disney cannot find support for its eroding morality among the vast majority of Southern Baptists, other evangelicals and others who adhere to the family values that once made Disney great," Merrell said. "Actions like these continue to damage the Disney name in the minds and hearts of countless Americans."

The e-mail solicitation of homosexual support for Disney was brought to the attention of Baptist Press by a Wilmington, Del., Catholic layman, Scott Stirling, who had been alerted to the message on the Internet by a friend unsympathetic to the homosexual movement.

It had been circulated by a self-described "lesbian, gay, bisexual" student group on the Internet at Duke University, Durham, N.C.

There is no way to determine exactly how many homosexual Internet sites and e-mail lists currently exist, according to Internet watchers, but, Stirling said, "This message from Brad Berman is likely circulating in all these homosexual e-mail chat groups across the country and even internationally."

Stirling wrote a letter to Eisner challenging the e-mail appeal from Cline's office, saying, "That you would allow your employees to use company e-mail to solicit support for a broad political agenda illustrates that Disney is willing to use its resources for social change rather than upholding traditional family values and virtues.

"I am a young, Catholic married man with one child," Stirling's letter continued. "God willing, I will have many more. Because your company is attempting to effect radical social change, I will never spend my money on any Disney product or activity."

The Southern Baptist Convention resolution adopted June 12 encourages Southern Baptists "to give serious and prayerful reconsideration" to whether to attend Disney theme parks and purchase Disney products -- and to boycott Disney if it continues "this antiChristian and antifamily trend."

The resolution cited five examples of Disney "corporate decisions, which have included but are not limited to:" 1) granting insurance benefits to partners of homosexual employees; 2) hosting homosexual "theme nights" at its parks; 3) a subsidiary's hiring of a convicted child molester to direct the movie, "Powder;" 4) a subsidiary's publication of a book aimed at homosexual teenagers; and 5) a subsidiary's production of the movie "Priest," which "disparages Christian values and depicts Christian leaders as morally defective."

The SBC resolution asked the Christian Life Commission "to monitor Disney's progress in returning to its previous philosophy of producing enriching family entertainment."

Criticism of Disney practices also was voiced last fall by messengers to the Florida Baptist Convention.