The Disney Channel sitcom “Good Luck Charlie” featured the network’s first gay couple on Sunday night, and now the organization One Million Moms has created a petition urging concerned parents to email one of the show’s sponsors to ask them to pull their ads.
Disney announced their plans to include a same-sex couple in their programming back in June and said they were very careful about the way the characters were introduced. The female characters will only appear in that one episode, and were brought in as the parents of a child who comes over for a playdate with Charlie.
“This particular storyline was developed under the consultancy of child development experts and community advisors,” a Disney Channel spokesperson said. “Like all Disney Channel programming, it was developed to be relevant to kids and families around the world and to reflect themes of diversity and inclusiveness.”
According to One Million Moms, however, the topic is too controversial to be included in a show aimed at young people and is asking supporters to email Care.com asking the company to threaten to pull their funding if Disney continues to “push the LGBT agenda”.
“An upcoming episode in this last season of “Good Luck Charlie” will feature a family with two moms, a first for Disney Channel. Because “Good Luck Charlie” is coming to a close, the characters are only expected to appear in one episode. However, one episode is enough, especially since the network repeatedly airs reruns of all its programs,” the site reads. “One Million Moms launched an email campaign in 2013 that urged Disney officials to abandon their plans to corrupt the children’s network with LGBT content. However, Disney officials have not responded to the thousands of emails protesting their plans. Disney has decided to be politically correct instead of providing family-friendly programming. Disney should stick to entertaining, not pushing an agenda. Conservative families need to urge Disney to avoid controversial topics that children are far too young to comprehend. This is the last place a parent would expect their children to be confronted with topics that are too difficult for them to understand. Mature issues of this nature are being introduced too early and too soon, and it is extremely unnecessary.”
The move has earned praise from many, however, who took to Twitter to discuss the episode.
Disney channel had an episode with their first gay couple as parents on good luck Charlie. I guess we are all growing up.
— Jalyn Stinardo (@Based_Jalyn) January 28, 2014
Disneys show good luck Charlie's newest episode features a lesbian couple. I love this.
— łëxî (diana) (@lexiii_thomas97) January 29, 2014
just heard about the lesbian couple on @DisneyChannel's good luck charlie. so awesome. #equality
— Madison Kendrick (@MadPKend) January 29, 2014
Seeing people post on FB ab banning Good Luck Charlie from their house bc there will be a gay couple on it makes me sick. Judgmental much?
— αbbʏ.† (@sarahabigail11) January 29, 2014
basically good luck charlie showed support for the lgbt community on i knEW THAT WAS A GOOD SHOW I KNEW IT
http://t.co/FOaOUjYP2c
— lynn☁ (@cuddlingstxles) January 27, 2014