c. 2005 Religion News Service

NASHVILLE, Tenn. _ Southern Baptists voted overwhelmingly Wednesday (June 22) to end their eight-year boycott of the Walt Disney Co., claiming the protest had an impact in making the company more family-friendly.

“The boycott has communicated effectively our displeasure concerning products and policies that violate moral righteousness and traditional family values,” reads the resolution adopted on the last day of the denomination’s two-day meeting. “For a boycott to be effective, it must be specifically targeted and of limited duration.”

The statement follows similar recent action taken by the American Family Association, a conservative religious group. It was adopted on the same day that Southern Baptists also voiced concern about children’s education, stem cell research and “judicial activism.”

As it did when the boycott began, the Disney decision continued to be a matter of debate. Some pointed to positive changes, including the pending departure of chief executive Michael Eisner and the production of more entertainment that is considered family-friendly.

“I think it’s time for us to move on,” said the Rev. Wiley Drake, a Buena Park, Calif., pastor who unsuccessfully proposed a boycott resolution in 1996 before one was approved the following year.

“I think that Disney has made some good moves,” he said in an interview.

Richard Land, president of the denomination’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said he thinks the ending of the boycott will be supported by most Southern Baptists.

“Part of the problem from the very beginning was that Disney for generations had asked to be judged by a different standard, that they were the family-friendly place, and under Eisner they became, at best, no better than any other sleazy Hollywood entertainment conglomerate,” he said in an interview.

Like the American Family Association, whose boycott ended in May, Land and some other Southern Baptist leaders said they are hopeful that the company’s co-production of the Christian classic “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” is another positive sign.

But not everyone was happy with the boycott’s end.

“For years, Disney had moved from Bambi to bimbos _ from the Mickey Mouse club and wholesome family programming to an open and blatant disregard to the values and virtues we hold dear,” said the Rev. Bill Dodson of Graves County, Ky., speaking on the convention floor. “We were not wrong in ’97 and we should not be wrong now. This old warrior isn’t ready to stop fighting the battle just yet.”

In the 1997 resolution, Southern Baptists urged their fellow members to boycott Disney because they believed it promoted “immoral ideologies,” demonstrated in part by policies and entertainment programs they believed favored gay rights.

“This is not an attempt to bring the Disney Company down, but to bring Southern Baptists up to the moral standard of God,” the old resolution read.

The Assemblies of God denomination joined the boycott but have since dropped out.

As Disney has been an object of Baptist concern over the years, so has education and the broader culture.

After receiving two proposed resolutions, a committee brought to a vote a statement that noted concern about “negative influences” in the culture, including schools.

“Homosexual activists and their allies are devoting substantial resources and using political power to promote the acceptance among schoolchildren of homosexuality as a morally legitimate lifestyle,” it reads.

It urged Southern Baptists to monitor the influence of education and entertainment on their children and to decide whether they are best educated in public, private or home-school settings.

Southern Baptist Convention President Bobby Welch, who was re-elected Tuesday, said he didn’t support a resolution that would have specifically called for pulling Christian students out of public schools.

“Everybody doesn’t have to go to Disney,” he said. “Everybody has to go to school.”

Other resolutions adopted included:

_ A statement of support for stem cell research that does not involve the destruction of embryos

_ A statement of support for the nomination of judges “who will interpret rather than make law”

_ A call for churches to boost their efforts to teach youth about the dangers of smoking

_ A call for prayer for the president and military personnel.

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