Last week, Disney announced that the character of LeFou in Beauty and the Beast would be gay and have a crush on Gaston. Naturally, some very ridiculous people totally freaked out, like that one lady who owned the drive-in.
Now, we meet Brooke Poston. Brooke is the author of a blog called “This Modest Mom.”
She describes herself as:
“A small town mama surviving off lots of coffee, even more Jesus, and all the yummy food. Figuring out this motherhood thing with massive amounts of trial/error and tons of grace. Soaking up the snuggles, laughing too loud, and finding myself in quite a few awkward situations.”
Awkward situations, perhaps, like a post she wrote this week telling the tragic tale of how her life got flipped, turned upside-down when Disney put a gay in a beautiful romance about bestiality and Stockholm Syndrome that she and her Disney princess-obsessed daughter had so been looking forward to.
Now, not only did they have to forego seeing the movie, she also decided to forego her planned $6,000 family trip to Disney World. Why? Because she will not stand for such sinful behavior on her movie screens.
Kidnapping? Fine! Go and do! Jesus loves it when people are held hostage (except in Dog Day Afternoon, naturally) and forced to wait on their captors hand and foot.
A young teenage girl making out with an anthropomorphic bison with some pretty serious anger management issues? Sure! Why not!
But if you’re going to go and put a gay person in there? That is a bridge too far, my friend. A bridge too far.
Brooke is, of course, aware that Disney has acknowledged the existence of gay people in the past, on their television shows and whatnot, and she’s been able to continue visiting the theme park despite that.
Disney isn’t just aiming their efforts towards parent’s of Disney-aged children anymore. They are pointing a desperate finger at the innocence of our youth. Disney is targeting our youth like they’re aiming at big game on a corporate hunting trip. They are banking on corrupting the purity of a child’s mind for the 1%. They are no longer making watching a choice, but by forcing it to become mainstream, Disney is telling the conservative family, the Christian public, that they’re views hold no worth. In jest, they’re subtly encouraging you to conform your ways. (Mark 13:22)
And Brooke is telling LGBT people that they hold no worth. That in order for her views to be respected, they must disappear.
But now, by including them in a feature film, she contends that
At this point, Disney is proudly looming over your morals and values and eerily cackling like a villain in one of their own classic fairy tales.
She now fears that this whole “gay thing” will be incorporated into a ride or one of their shows.
So why can’t I just boycott the live action “Beauty and the Beast” and still go to Disney World? Well, the fact of the matter is that if Disney is so boldly including it in their movies and television shows, then soon they’ll have to follow suit and include it in their skits and park rides. Who’s to say that an adapted theater version of “Beauty and the Beast” won’t be shown in Hollywood Studios this year? Mark my words, I won’t be ‘entertained’ by something that doesn’t align with my religious beliefs. Which definitely means I won’t pay for it.
Now, drag queens in the Country Bear Jamboree, I could see — it would probably make the whole thing a lot more watchable. But how does she see this happening on rides? What? Is she afraid she’s gonna have to float by Provincetown during “It’s A Small World After All?” Or is it something to do with the teacups?
It’s not just Disney that she’s boycotting either. Brooke does not watch any television shows or movies whatsoever that feature gay people, because she hates sinning so very much.
If we’re being honest, there’s a lot of things we’ve stopped doing. We don’t even bother with rated R movies, because I hate the language, and the near pornographic scenes. I’ve walked out, or turned off, many PG-13 movies for the same reason. I refuse to use the regular bathrooms at Target and if the family room has a line, then we leave. Some of the most popular shows (Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, Quantico, This Is Us, Greys Anatomy, The Good Wife, etc.), most of which air on ABC, a Disney owned network, I quit watching them all when they revealed exclusively LGBT characters. We cut our cable years ago because we refused to pay for things we weren’t able to watch. Even the commercials make me cringe.
First of all, I’m gonna need to point out that, at least on Quantico and How to Get Away With Murder, there were gay characters in the very first episode. Also, if you hate sinning so much, how are you gonna watch a show called How to Get Away With Murder?! She’ll watch shows that acknowledge the fact that murderers exist, but not gay people?
As far as the Disney trip goes, Brooke is disappointed, but does have a solution — she and her family will be going to Branson, Missouri instead! Because there are no gay people in Branson, I guess, and they have only nice heterosexual attractions, like the Greg Brady Lunch.
Following this missive, Brooke received some “hate mail” from people saying they hoped her children wouldn’t grow up to be as hateful and bigoted as she is, as I’m sure most of us do. She was very hurt by this, because by her estimation, she is actually a very nice person who doesn’t hate anybody and it was real unfair of everyone to say those mean things to her, just because she wants the whole world to act as if LGBT people don’t exist in order to appease her and her “values.”
Maybe I’m just digging myself a deeper hole for you guys to throw me into. But hopefully, you see that there’s a real person with feelings behind this screen. Hopefully you know that your words hurt. Hopefully you’ll see me in a different light.
And I will tell you — I believe that she believes this. You know why? Because pretty much everyone thinks they are a nice person, even when they do things that are not very nice or say things that hurt people. But you can’t expect people to care about your feelings, and how their words make you feel until you’re willing to care about their feelings and how your words make them feel. Or, you know, don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.