Press quiet as a mouse when it comes to Catholic angles in this Disney-DeSantis fight

I was never nuts for Disney. I’ve never been to one of their a theme park, either as a child or now as a parent of two children, and never indulged in their movies much over my lifetime. I’ll freely admit that puts me in the minority, both in the United States and around the world, when it comes to Disney consumption.

I was, however, once a Disney employee. No, I didn’t work in one of their stores. Instead, I was employed at ABC News in New York, where I worked for their digital unit running the website and other internet assets such as social media. It was a great place to work — although not “The Happiest Place On Earth” as the official tagline for Disneyland states. It was, after all, a newsroom — but one of the perks was free tickets each year to their amusement parks.

I say all this in the context of the ongoing feud regarding the Florida “Parental Rights in Education” bill, which is now law after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it. This is the much-discussed bill that bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten through third grade “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

The law continues to get media coverage for two reasons. First, because of Disney’s involvement and second due to the larger notion that DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, is — everyone chant the media mantra — “engaging in a culture war.” This remains a political story, a business story and a pop culture story.

Is this also an important religion story? It certainly is (tmatt takes on this very topic in GetReligion’s most recent podcast).

My most recent GetReligion post focused on the news media’s largely ignoring the Republican DeSantis’ Catholic faith in regard to the widespread news coverage around the bill, which opponents effectively labeled “Don’t Say Gay” even though the bill never used those words.

At the same time, the news coverage for conservative press around the legislation has centered much more on Disney’s late-in-the-game activism in opposing it. The coverage among mainstream and progressive news sites continues to center on that activist “Don’t Say Gay” mantra.

Podcast: Concerning the many religion-beat stories linked to that 'Don't Say Gay' bill

Let’s talk news-business realities for a moment.

If you do an online search for the following terms — “Parental Rights in Education,” Florida — you will get about 43,000 hits on Google News (as of Thursday afternoon).

Then again, if you run a search for these terms — “Don’t Say Gay,” Florida — you will get 6,820,000 hits on Google News and 24,100,000 hits on Google (period).

That’s a pretty big difference. What’s going on?

On this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in) I argued that the real name of this bill sounded way, way too much like a whatever it was that parents in Virginia wanted during that recent election that left the Democratic Party establishment in shock.

As it turns out, a new Public Opinion Strategies poll (.pdf here) found that registered voters — a majority of Democrats, even — liked the contents of this controversial Florida bill when shown its key, defining language:

“Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in Kindergarten through third grade or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

Clearly, “Don’t Say Gay” worked much better for political activists who wanted to keep the focus on LGBTQ-era sexual education for prepubescent children. The whole idea was that way too many parents are burdened with religious, moral and cultural beliefs that were on the wrong side of history. Thus, “parental rights” and classroom transparency are not helpful concepts.

What does this have to do with the many religion-angle stories that journalists could be chasing linked to this legislation and variations on this bill that are sure to show up in other states?