Chris Tomlinson: Don’t do like Disney, oppose Texas’s anti-LGBT laws now

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and I agree: Texas businesses should not do like Disney. Of course, Dan the demagogue wants to silence critics of his plan to humiliate, marginalize and discriminate against transgender people and others who love in ways he finds threatening to his brittle worldview. I think Patrick has given Texas business leaders plenty of time to mobilize, denounce and oppose his planned affront to the human rights of the state’s citizens, including their employees. Unlike Disney CEO Bob Chapek, no one can claim they didn’t know what the bigots had in mind before they acted. Chapek is getting it from both sides these days after he failed to preemptively condemn Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The law bans public school teachers from acknowledging the existence or the normality of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people.

Disney employs quite a few LGBT people in Florida who rightfully want their children and classmates to respect their community. Chapek’s employees asked their CEO to pressure Florida’s politicians, including Republican presidential-hopeful Gov. Rick DeSantis, to kill the measure. Chapek, though, remained silent. Only after Disney employees picketed and DeSantis signed the bill did Chapek promise to do everything possible to get the law repealed. Today, LGBT supporters and the conservatives bigoted against them are all hating on Chapek. Patrick, who never misses a chance to bully LGBT people, saw an opportunity to seize headlines. “Disney has violated their sacred trust with parents as they actively plan to indoctrinate and sexualize their children,” Patrick incorrectly claims in a fundraising email to supporters. He called on Texans to boycott Disney “until they change their corporate philosophy.” The boycott is a big personal sacrifice for Patrick, a huge fan of Disney’s Davy Crockett miniseries and its Alamo mythology.