Disney has suffered from moral failure, and its flaunting of sin has brought with it a significant cost. That is the message that evangelist Franklin Graham underscored in a social media post on Saturday following Florida’s decision to eliminate the company’s special tax status.
“LGBTQ activists are using corporations to force their agenda on the public, and companies may want to take another look at what they are allowing to happen,” he wrote. “Disney has gone too far. The people of Florida have revolted, and it’s going to cost Disney big time.”
“Disney had a special tax status in the state which they benefitted from in a huge way—but because they came out against the parents of Florida, the governor and legislators have revoked that status,” he explained.
As Decision Magazine recently described, the special privileges afforded to Disney in 1967 were not without controversy, even prior to the company’s brazen attack on parental rights legislation:
The Reedy Creek Improvement District was created in a 1967 deal between the state and the Walt Disney Company. For the last five decades, Disney has essentially operated its 25,000-acre property as its own municipal government, with its own board of supervisors and fire department.
In a video posted to his Twitter page, Florida state Rep. Spencer Roach explained: “They are their own government. They’re exempt from all county regulation and most state regulations. Legally under the law, Disney could build a nuclear power plant there and we couldn’t do a … thing about it.”
While lawmakers have long been critical of the special privileges afforded to Disney, the company’s recent threats to aid in repealing the state’s new “Parental Rights in Education” law has spurred Florida Republicans to action.
The ramifications Disney is currently facing in the state of Florida are a direct result of the corporation’s “moral failure,” Graham further asserted.
“Walt Disney had a vision for wholesome family entertainment. He was committed to the family,” the evangelist pointed out. “The morals of the corporate leadership of Disney today are in the gutter, and they want to redefine family counter to God’s original design and flaunt sin.”
“Thank God for Governor Ron DeSantis who is willing to take a bold stand. We need more leaders like him,” he urged. “God bless him and the Florida legislature.”
