CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Charlotte-based evangelist Franklin Graham is calling for a boycott of the new Disney Beauty and the Beast film that will feature Disney’s first-ever gay character.
In a Facebook post that has been shared over 86,000 times, Graham says “They’re trying to push the LGBT agenda into the hearts and minds of your children—watch out!”
Graham went on to say that Disney has the right to make their cartoons, but that Christians also have the right to not support their company if their values don’t match. Graham said that he met Walt Disney as a young boy, along with his father Billy Graham and younger brother.
According to the movie’s director Bill Condon, the character LeFou, played by Josh Gad, will explore his sexuality during the remake of the Disney classic tale.
“LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston,” Condon said. “He’s confused about what he wants. It’s somebody who’s just realizing that he has these feelings. And Josh makes something really subtle and delicious out of it. And that’s what has its payoff at the end, which I don’t want to give away. But it is a nice, exclusively, gay moment in a Disney movie.”
Gad says that there was nothing in the script that explicitly said LeFou is a gay character.
“I haven’t seen anything (about that), tell me more,” Gad joked, on the red carpet for the movie’s world premiere Thursday.
