Disney CEO rebuffs LGBT and stays silent about Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill

New Disney CEO Bob Chapek seems to have adopted the motto “Don’t Say Gay,” and is risking a hissy fit from loud-mouthed LGBTQ groups who might have seen the entertainment behemoth as their devoted servant.

Sources at Disney told The Hollywood Reporter that Chapek, unlike predecessor Bob Iger, isn’t being so quick to hoist the rainbow flag and trumpet gay-pride slogans. While Iger condemned pending Florida legislation that would ban discussion of LGBTQ topics in schools with third-graders or younger, “Chapek is staunchly opposed to bringing Disney into issues he deems irrelevant to the company and its businesses,” one source told the Reporter on March 2.

Florida’s popular bill has been named “Don’t Say Gay” by slogan-slinging gay groups and the media. Joe Biden has condemned it and former Disney CEO Iger labeled it a “hateful bill,” though its actual intent is to keep relative strangers from meddling in elementary schoolers’ sexuality.

“I’m with the President on this!” Iger wrote. “If passed, this bill will put vulnerable, young LGBTQ people in jeopardy.” Biden had tweeted his opposition, misleadingly as usual, to “legislation designed to attack LGBTQI+ kids.”

On March 3 protesters of all ages gathered in Florida’s Capitol building to oppose the legislation and, in an attempt to win hearts and minds, chant “F___ DeSantis” (Florida governor Ron DeSantis).

GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis told The New York Post that corporations need to promote and defend homosexuality, saying: “Companies that do business in Florida, Texas, and the dozens of other states considering anti-LGBTQ legislation not only have a responsibility to speak out for their LGBTQ customers and employees, they also have a real opportunity to educate the public about these unpopular and harmful bills and stop them from becoming law,” Ellis said.