Josh Hawley is fundraising off his bill targeting Disney’s copyright protections
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican of Missouri, jumped into the conservative fight against Disney this week with a bill that would strip the entertainment giant’s longest standing copyrights.
Though it is unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, the bill attracted national attention as it marked another attempt by conservatives to punish the company for speaking out against a Florida law opponents say targets the LGBTQ community for discrimination.
The next day, Hawley collected on the attention. His campaign sent out a fundraising email, touting the senator for leading the fight against “woke corporations.”
“Disney crossed a line when they prioritized defending people attempting to sexualize children, and stopped focusing on creating good family entertainment,” the email said. “Like so many parents who care about the well-being of their children and seek to protect them from the overt sexualization the left pushes, Josh was extremely disturbed by Disney’s woke agenda.”
Hawley is not up for re-election until 2024, but he is one of several Republican politicians capitalizing on a desire among some conservatives to punish the company for what they see as its liberal stances on race and LGBTQ issues. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who, like Hawley, is a potential presidential contender in 2024, has been particularly aggressive in criticizing the company, which has resulted in a windfall in contributions to his gubernatorial re-election campaign.
Hawley’s bill specifically targets Disney’s copyrights protections, which were extended in Congress in 1998. The company’s copyright on Mickey Mouse is slated to enter the public domain in 2024.
Hawley’s bill would strip the company’s protections, and the protections for any characters created before 1966, by retroactively limiting copyright to 56 years for motion picture companies that have a market cap of over $150 billion.
While the bill has no cosponsors, Hawley is not the first senator to go after Disney.
Republicans have used their fight with the company to reignite the culture war over LGBTQ issues, implying adults are harming children by talking about sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Florida law prevents teachers from mentioning sexual orientation or gender identity to students in kindergarten through third grade and allowing parents to sue school districts if they believe instruction in higher grades is not “age appropriate.”
As opponents of the law started calling it the “Don’t Say Gay bill,” supporters accused people who opposed it of being “groomers” a word used to describe people who build a relationship with a child to sexually abuse or exploit them.
The rhetoric makes use of a tactic employed by the anti-LGBTQ rights movement since the 1970s, when Anita Bryant created the group “Save our Children” to defeat local ordinances preventing discrimination against the LGBTQ community.
Already, a group of GOP senators— led by Sen. Roger Marshall from Kansas— wrote to the TV Parental Guide Advisory Board, asking them to update their ratings to help parents shield their children from LGBTQ content, specifically mentioning Disney’s push for more LGBTQ representation in the letter.
Earlier this month, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida introduced a bill that would prevent large companies from deducting the cost of health insurance plans from their taxes if they pay for women to travel to get an abortion or allow parents to pay for their child’s gender transition. He specifically mentioned Disney in his press release.
Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The company spoke out against the Florida bill after pressure from opponents of the bill who were concerned it would have a chilling effect on teachers, preventing them from mentioning a same-sex spouse or from acknowledging if a student has parents who are gay or transgender.
After they pledged to work to repeal the law, Florida lawmakers passed legislation stripping the company of special tax rights that had been in effect since the 1960s.
