ON April 5, 2007, the Walt Disney Company announced that it would allow same-sex couples to hold “Fairy Tale Weddings” at its theme parks and on its cruises. These high-end wedding packages, which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, offer such amenities as public ceremonies at the parks’ marriage pavilions, Disney cartoon characters at the reception, and horse-drawn glass-carriage rides. According to the company website, “your personal ‘fairy godplanner’ grants your every wish and ensures your wedding day is everything you have always dreamt it would be.” Disney spokesman Donn Walker explained that the decision to offer gay ceremonies was “consistent with our policy of creating a welcoming, respectful, and inclusive environment for all of our guests.”
It’s been increasingly clear for years now, but this little story encapsulates perfectly how befuddling to ideologues of all persuasions our country has become. What, to any self-respecting anti-corporate leftist, could present a more appalling spectacle than lavish kitschfests at the Ground Zero of consumerism run amok? What, at the same time, could more reliably provoke teeth-gnashing among social conservatives than the decision by an American icon of family values to throw in with the gay-rights agenda?
Comments