We all love Disney movies and Disney theme parks. But I doubt too many Christians loved what Disney threatened to do in Georgia. The Disney Company threatened to pull back its film and television productions in Atlanta and forced the governor’s veto of a religious freedom bill that would protect pastors and Christian businesses from gay bullies.

Meanwhile, the Disney Company has placed theme parks in China. In fact, a $5.5 billion theme park will soon open in Shanghai, China. This is the same country that has had a brutal one-child policy and forced abortions. This is a country with a terrible legacy of human rights abuse, with brutal crackdowns and labor camps. If you don’t see the hypocrisy and double standard of these two positions, then I’m not sure there is much more I can say to make you see the obvious.

It reminded me of a famous essay by one of my Georgetown professors. In her essay on “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” Jeanne Kirkpatrick was critical of the Carter administration’s demands that autocratic countries quickly liberalize their policies while rarely applying such rhetoric to Communist governments. Disney would be good to focus its attention on the repression in China before ever threatening to punish Georgia for wanting to protect people of faith.

David French asks this question: Why does the Walt Disney Co. prefer communists to Christians? The religious freedom bill is actually something the Disney Company should support but they are listening to gay activists. The bill would have protected pastors from being forced to officiate at homosexual weddings and would have protected religious organizations from having to rent their facilities for events that violated their beliefs.

Disney’s double standard needs to be exposed for what it is. The company is willing to turn a blind eye to the huge log of true discrimination in China but then turns around to focus on an alleged speck in the eye of Georgia.