ORLANDO, Fla. (BP)–Disney theme parks in central Florida will once again play host to Gay Day June 6.
The annual event, first held in Disney’s Magic Kingdom in 1991, was cited by several groups, including messengers to the 1997 Southern Baptist Convention, as an indication of The Disney Company’s pro-homosexual agenda and provided impetus to the call for economic action against the entertainment conglomerate.
Gay Day organizers expect more than 100,000 visitors to the four Disney theme parks during the event this year. The event’s official Internet site urges people to visit the park despite organizers’ lofty attendance predictions, saying, “Don’t be scared (unless you’re a Southern Baptist, but then you’re always scared of other people having fun … kind of like Catholics and sex.)”
While park officials deny the event is sponsored by Disney, according to the Gay Day Internet site, “Disney has become more proficient at offering special entertainment and arms-length coordination and support to event organizers.”
“It’s a great opportunity for gay people as adults to go back to Disney World and have something in common with majority of the people there,” said Babs Daitch, in the April 28 edition of San Francisco Frontiers, a biweekly publication targeting the homosexual community.
“On the water ride, I felt like I was 7 years old again. There was a drag queen trying not to get here wig wet, three guys in their little Speedos, and lesbians holding on to each other. The feeling was so wonderful,” Daitch said.
The official “After-Gay-Day at Disney Event” will be held June 6 on Hollywood Boulevard at the Disney-MGM Studios from 10 pm to 3 am. Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon will be the scene of “Beachball ’98,” described as a “nighttime adult gathering.”
The official Gay Day schedule also designates the area behind Cinderella’s Castle in the Magic Kingdom as the meeting place for “gay and lesbian youth.”
The Gay Day schedule features several homosexual-themed parties at Orlando-area nightclubs, including the Mr. and Miss Gay Day USA Contest at the Hyatt Orlando in Kissimmee and a gathering identified as “Orlando’s very best gay night life” with “two of the very best female impersonators in the world.”
Theme park visitors are encouraged to wear “something really red,” according to the event’s Internet site, so that “Disney management can gauge just how many people are there because it’s Gay Day.”
The Internet site notes that non-Gay Day park visitors in previous years who arrived wearing red shirts were given out-of-date Disney clothing to wear if they complained to park management. The Internet site said in 1994 disgruntled guests were provided with “the most awful looking black T-shirts with huge multicolored confetti prints” allowing Gay Day supporters “to know who the biggest homophobes were at the park.”
Universal Studios, Sea World and Church Street Station jumped on the bandwagon last year, organizing their own Gay Day festivities to draw homosexuals to their central Florida entertainment venues.
