Less than two years after the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus posted a video in which members sing about “coming for your children,” the group has announced it will partner with Disney Concerts to present two performances at San Francisco’s “Disney PRIDE in Concert” in March.
This so-called “family-friendly” performance will feature both classic Disney songs and chorus members narrating “personal stories of love, LGBTQ+ pride, and family ties.” Disney Concerts is a unit of the Walt Disney Company that licenses music and produces events based on movies such as “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King.”
In July 2021, the chorus released a video claiming to be a “Message from the Gay Community.”
“We’ll convert your children – happens bit by bit, quietly and subtly and you will barely notice it…” chorus members sing.
The video dismissed parents who might be concerned about what their children are viewing on the internet or where they are at night.
“Face your fate,” the chorus sings to parents. “You are just frightened,” one of the men sings. “You think that we’ll corrupt your kids if our agenda goes unchecked. Funny, just this once, you are correct.”
The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus defended its video as “tongue-in-cheek humor.” Yet, in the same statement, members of its board of directors blamed Christians for “decades of children being indoctrinated.”
“It’s our turn,” they wrote. “We can’t imagine a more perfect partnership,” said San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus CEO Chris Verdugo of Disney in a statement.
This partnership is just one more example of Disney’s shift to the Left. From Disney movies with prominent LGBTQ characters (with promises of more to come), to the company pulling Disney classics from the children’s section of its streaming service for not being in line with its social justice goals, Disney has promised to promote stories focused on creating “a more inclusive future together.”
In March 2022, Karey Burke, president of Disney’s General Entertainment Content, said she supports featuring “many, many” characters in Disney content who are LGBTQ.
Disney is following through on Burke’s promise. Disney, however, has long been pushing LGBTQ content on adults and kids alike. Latoya Raveneau, an executive producer for Disney, said in a video released last March that she was surprised by how welcoming Disney was to her “not-at-all secret gay agenda.”
Raveneau helped create the Disney+ animated TV show titled “The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder,” which recently faced backlash over an episode pushing for “reparations” for African Americans.
“Our leadership over there has been so welcoming,” Raveneau said of her attempts at “adding queerness” into the show.
This agenda has come at a cost for Disney, though. According to the company, Disney+ lost 2.4 million subscribers in the last three months of 2022. In the last quarter, the company had a direct-to-consumer operating loss of $1.05 billion.
Disney’s returning CEO Bob Iger told CNBC he plans to “transform the company” by cutting $5.5 billion in expenses and laying off 7,000 employees, which is 4% of its workforce.
Like Disney, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus has also made activism a key part of its mission. Responding to the backlash against the video, Verdugo spoke to SFist, a media company located in San Francisco.
“For us, it’s not only about the artistic product that we put out, but also about our being activists,” he stated. “Social justice is a mantle we take up, and we take it up loudly. We won’t back down.”
The Disney concert isn’t the only activism in which the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus takes part. The group regularly uses drag competitions, including one titled “Drag me to St. Francis,” to fundraise.
According to ticketmaster, other Disney PRIDE concerts are set to be performed around the nation by other gay men’s choruses throughout the spring and summer.
The Seattle Men’s Chorus is one of the choruses performing Disney PRIDE concerts. The chorus, which self-labels as “one of the world’s largest LGBTQ and ally-identified choruses,” often performs in drag at concerts and performances that have been labeled by the chorus as “suited for bringing the little ones,” even those under the age of 5.
The group is also actively participating in LGBTQ activism. Craig Coogan, interim executive director of the Seattle Men’s Chorus and the Seattle Women’s Chorus, wrote in The Seattle Times on December 9, 2022, that “The Seattle Men’s Chorus — which for 43 years has woven music, social change and humor into its performances — returns for another season of holiday concerts to entertain, enlighten and empower audiences.”
In that same article, he describes how the chorus held “space on stage during a concert for a dual wedding,” following the passage of Referendum 74, which legalized same-sex marriage in Washington in 2012.
The Gay Men’s Chorus of South Florida is also performing two Disney PRIDE concerts. Just days ago, the chorus posted a YouTube video of its “Celebrate the Holidays” Christmas program. At one point during the concert, the chorus performs “Hallelujah” from Handel’s “Messiah,” while men stand in front of the chorus, some with full beards, wearing nun habits.
The group calls the Disney PRIDE concert a “celebration of LGBTQ+ life, love, family, and pride.” The Disney music performed will be “reimagined” by the chorus and interwoven with “universal storytelling themes stemming from the power of the diverse chorus community.”
While the ticketing venue asked that children under 2 not be brought to the concerts, there are no other age restrictions.
Neither Disney nor the San Francisco’s Gay Men’s Chorus responded to requests for a comment on their partnership or about the content of the concerts.
Disclosure: The Daily Wire has announced plans for kids entertainment content.
Elyse Apel is a junior at Hillsdale College studying politics and journalism. Her writing has been published in the Washington Examiner, The American Spectator, and The Political Insider.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.