Advocacy group ends long Disney boycott: Cause lost on "crowded cultural battlefield"

Citing other challenges in a “crowded cultural battlefield,” the conservative American Family Association announced that it has officially ended its boycott of Disney theme parks and products initiated in 1996 over Disney’s alleged embrace of gay rights and the “homosexual lifestyle.”

The AFA, based in Tupelo, Mississippi, was joined in its opposition to Disney by other Christian right groups and the Southern Baptist Convention, but the entertainment company always contended that the boycotts were inconsequential.

AFA president Tim Wildmon, quoted on the group’s Web site in late May, said he has seen some positive changes at Disney recently. But he also said that since 2001 the ideological struggle against Disney has become “lost among the other battles being fought on a crowded cultural battlefield.”