There is a parent revolution happening in America. School closures and “Zoom school” gave parents a close look at what exactly their children were being taught. Too often, parents were horrified by what they saw: woke curricula designed to indoctrinate children in belief systems that were often contrary to parents’ expectations.
Republicans in the Florida legislature passed a bill that protects small children in kindergarten through third grade from sexuality in their curriculum. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, many in the media and on the left lost their collective minds. I won't dignify the media’s framing of this bill by repeating their preferred name -- this is a parental rights bill. As a proud mother of a beautiful daughter, I stand firmly with parents against the radical Left’s agenda.
But corporate interests are jumping on the outrage train, with the Walt Disney Corporation -- a major employer in Florida -- leading the charge. Former CEO Bob Iger called their opposition of “right and wrong.” But he has it backwards: what's right is for parents to choose what their children learn; what's wrong is to indoctrinate children with ideologies against the wishes of parents. Children should be learning reading, writing, and arithmetic, not the private lives of their teachers.
Some Disney executives and employees are also wildly hypocritical. They threaten walkouts over a parental rights bill yet are completely fine with looking the other way with an ongoing genocide in China. Disney filmed its recent movie “Mulan” in Xinjiang province, the same place where the Chinese Communist Party is putting the ethnic minority Uyghurs in concentration camps, sterilizing their women, and systematically eliminating their culture. I don't remember Disney employees organizing any public concerns over this oppression, or of Disney’s failure to condemn it. Disney’s silence then spoke far louder than their empty words today.
It didn't use to be this way. Growing up in Florida, I would often perform at Disney World as a singer in high school. Back then, Disney was a family friendly company that focused on providing visitors from all over the world an escape from the rigors of daily life. But I don't recognize Disney today, where it is intent on putting political agendas front and center in their parks and products. Just last week, Disney announced they would no longer use the term “boys and girls” in their parks, once again bowing to demands out of the mainstream. Walt Disney, a self-made man from humble roots who loved the United States and the opportunity it afforded him, would roll over in his grave if he knew.
We should teach our children to be gracious, kind, and to be respectful of other people—but unfortunately today in America, there is only one “right” way of thinking, and an obsession to cancel anyone who deviates from that “right” thought pattern permeates our society. I'm grateful for Governor DeSantis and the Florida legislature for resisting cancel culture. In Congress, I'll stand with parents to protect their children from the mob mentality. Our children are our future, and they are worth fighting for.
Morgan Ortagus is a candidate for Congress in Tennessee’s Fifth Congressional District.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member