c. 1997 Religion New Service

UNDATED _ After giving the Walt Disney Co. what one official called”one year’s notice,”delegates to the upcoming Southern Baptist Convention are expected to vote on a boycott of the entertainment conglomerate when they gather June 17-19 in Dallas.

In 1996, delegates approved a resolution”to boycott the Walt Disney theme parks and stores if they continue this anti-Christian and anti-family trend,”referring to what Southern Baptists considered the company’s”promotion of homosexuality.” The annual convention also will mark the end of the 19-agency structure of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, which has been downsized to 12 agencies. With the closing gavel, three agencies will form the new North American Mission Board and four others will cease to exist.

The Disney proposal is expected to come in the form of a resolution. Last year’s resolution decried a number of Disney policies, including the company’s extension of insurance benefits to companions of gay employees.

Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission President Richard Land plans to recommend the convention’s resolutions committee draft a statement calling for a”targeted boycott”of Disney’s theme parks and stores.

Land’s ethics and public policy agency was charged with monitoring Disney’s response to last year’s resolution.”Disney’s response has been, when they’re in a good mood, ignoring us and, when they’re in a bad mood, giving us the back of their hand,”said Land.”I think it’s time for the convention to seriously consider a boycott.” Land said a specific boycott would be more effective than trying to explain to 15.7 million Southern Baptists all of the various products and companies connected to Disney.”A trip to a Disney theme park is a high ticket item,”he said.”You’d have to not buy a lot of videos and not go to a lot of movies to make up the equivalent dollarwise of deciding not to spend a week’s vacation at one of the theme parks and stay at one of the Disney hotels.” When asked for a response to a possible boycott, Disney spokesman Ken Green said,”We were under the impression there was a boycott for the past year.” Although no official boycott has yet been called by the SBC, individual Southern Baptists have joined other evangelical Christians in choosing not to spend their money on Disney, said Bill Merrell, spokesman for the Southern Baptist Executive Committee.

Baptist officials did not point to a single factor moving them from threatened to actual boycott, but said the April coming out as a lesbian of the main character on”Ellen,”a show on Disney-owned ABC, didn’t help matters.”It’s another piece, another component indicating the direction of the corporation of aggressively pushing what appears to be a pro-homosexual agenda,”said Merrell.”I think if Ellen had come out as a secret evangelical Christian it would have been impossible to change the trend.” In other matters, SBC President Tom Elliff, an Oklahoma pastor, is expected to be re-elected to a traditional second, one-year term. The one person who considered opposing him decided not to run.

Land said he also expects delegates, who are called messengers, to consider a resolution dealing with a”whole cluster of human-life issues,”including cloning, genetic engineering, embryo research and partial-birth abortion.

Another proposed resolution concerns women’s ordination and local church autonomy. It has been submitted by lawyer-turned-filmmaker Steven Lipscomb, who has chronicled Southern Baptists’ differing views on women ministers in a film called”Battle for the Minds.” Lipscomb’s resolution would”affirm the autonomy of the local church”in determining”matters of biblical interpretation on the role of women’s ordination.” Merrell, the executive committee’s liaison to the resolutions committee, confirmed the resolution had been received but could not predict how the committee would treat the proposal.

Delegates to the 1984 meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution opposing women’s ordination, but Southern Baptist women continue to be ordained by some congregations aligned with the denomination.

When all the resolutions are considered and the convention comes to a close, so, too, will seven of the agencies of the denomination. Leaders of those agencies will give their final reports at the annual meeting.”The emotions … involved in making the decision were very significant, not just for the persons involved in the various agencies but for the convention itself,”said Merrell.”It will certainly be a poignant moment for those whose last report is given this year.”

DEA END ADELLE