Molly Ivins July 14

AUSTIN, Texas — The State Board of Education has achieved a somewhat impressive feat by being both silly and nasty at the same time. The board's 8-4 decision last week to dump $43 million of lucrative Walt Disney Co. stock means, as the Houston Chronicle put it, that it is "more interested in wagging a moralistic finger at the giant entertainment company than in making sound investment decisions for the schoolchildren of Texas." Disney stock went up the day after the vote.

At first glance, the religious right's jihad against Disney is ludicrous. What have these folks got against Mickey Mouse? The Magic Kingdom? "The Lion King"?

The latest claim against Disney by the American Family Association is that one of Disney's many subsidiaries, Miramax Films, produces movies full of sex and violence. Some of Miramax's R-rated films certainly are for adults — the highly acclaimed "Sling Blade" (which won an Academy Award for writing), the rather sweet "Chasing Amy" and the controversial "Pulp Fiction" and "Trainspotting."

Although all these movies have passages that make them unsuitable for children, they are not pornography or even the sort of mindless violence-for-entertainment films like "Rambo" or an Arnold Schwarzenegger film. The critics were impressed by all of them (although personally, "Pulp Fiction" was more than I could take).

The Christian right's real problem with Disney, though, is not Miramax movies but gay people. Disney's health insurance program for its employees covers the "domestic partners" of gay employees; Disney has let gays into its theme parks just like everybody else; and Disney owns ABC, the network that aired lesbian comedian Ellen DeGeneres' show. For the Christian right, whose Christianity does not extend to gays, this puts Disney on its blacklist.

The AFA's web site contains vast amounts of anti-Disney material, almost all of it premised on the notion that (as the AFA puts it) "Disney is one of the leading promoters of the homosexual lifestyle, as well as the homosexual political and social agenda in America today."

At least some members of our State Board of Education fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book: judging Miramax films by a pastiche of highlights involving sex or violence put together by the AFA. In the first place, you know the AFA is not going to put together a reel of moments of great social value from Disney films, and in the second place, anyone can use the same method to make, say, "Hamlet" look like a pornographic paean to incessant murder.

The board members' vote to dump Disney stock would have been somewhat less stupid if the stock had not earned a 108 percent return over the last two years.

They would also look less hypocritical if the board were not also invested in gambling casinos, breweries, chemical companies that produce toxic pollutants, Time Warner, which also makes adult movies (including such gems as "Crash," rated NC-17), and a variety of other controversial corporations. This move was not about Disney's R-rated films; it's the Christian right's effort to get Disney for supposedly being pro-gay.

Richard Levy of the Texas Freedom Alliance, a group that opposes the Christian right politically, testified before the board: "We are here for one simple reason: A small right-wing group is attempting to advance its national political agenda at the expense of Texas' public-school children as well as Texas taxpayers."

One of the curiosities of the Christian right is that like all extremist movements, it keeps eating its own. In the old days (that's about eight years ago), Monte Hasie of Lubbock was the far-right polarity on the state board and was considered a bit of a doofus. These days, Hasie, who is retiring, is practically a moderate, as is board Chairman Jack Christie, a conservative Republican once memorably described on a religious radio station in Southeast Texas as "a snake in the grass from the pits of hell."

There are five Christian-right members on the board now, none of whom has children in the public schools. Seven of the 15 seats on the board are on the ballot this year, and the religious right has candidates in five of those races. If they win them all, the board will be owned by the Christian right. The two Democrats who abstained on the Disney vote both face Christian-right opponents. This is what the rest of us get for paying no attention to down-ballot races.

The attempt to take over the State Board of Education is part of a concerted political plan promulgated and promoted by Pat Robertson. One of the curious characteristics of the Christian right is that its members constantly pretend to be victims while viciously attacking others. Two East Texas Democrats were defeated for the board after a flier mailed just before the last election erroneously accused them of favoring sex education for kindergarteners and of teaching "homosexual lifestyles" in the schools. Yet a few months ago, the Christian Coalition's state web site featured an article on "The Assault on the State Board of Education" about how the poor Christian-right board members are under attack.

One of my questions about the Christian right is why it spends so much time attacking people instead of taking up a positive cause — say, doing something about the one-fourth of American children who are being raised in poverty. Wouldn't that be more ... Christian?

Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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