Because nothing says “defending American values” like wasting thousands of dollars, the Florida Family Association is at it again, raising funds to fly a plane over the Disney area during Gay Days weekend, “warning” families about all the scary gay people who will be at the parks.
During Gay Days 2013, Watermark obtained FFA’s invoice to rent the plane. For 40 hours of flight time on May 41 and June 1, and to hire multiple planes – one even pulled a banner written in Spanish – FFA spent a whopping $16,400. The banner read: “WARNING GAY DAY AT DISNEY 6/1.”
Now, FFA has posted an article to their website outlining their plans to waste thousands of dollars again this year. (If you’d rather not click that link and give them traffic, that’s okay – we’re about to cover the interesting parts.) Their goal is to raise $6,720 for 16 hours of flight time. They’re shaking up the message a little this year – the June 6 banner will read “WARNING GAY DAY AT DISNEY 6/7,” but the June 7 banner will read “WARNING GAY DAY AT DISNEY 2DAY.”
As of May 30, the FFA reports $4,303 has been raised, and anything above the $6,720 benchmark will be used to add flight time hours.
The hate plane has a long and colorful history during Gay Days. Its first recorded appearance was in 1998, when a plane circled over the Magic Kingdom towing a banner saying, “Jesus Can Save You From Your Lifestyle.”
In 1999, the message was “Freedom from Homosexuality—Jesus Christ.”
After 9/11, Walt Disney World’s airspace was classified as a no-fly zone, ending the tradition for a while.
FFA revived it in 2011, and kept it up for 2012 and 2013. The banner’s return in 2011 was reported by WESH-TV as conservatives throwing down the gauntlet, conveniently glossing over that Gay Days that year was hugely successful, incident-free and brings in $150 million to the local economy.
“The battle lines are drawn,” said the WESH reporter, as thousands of local LGBTs and allies rolled their eyes.
In 2013, Mikael Audebert, executive director of Converge (Orlando’s LGBT visitor’s bureau), wrote a deliciously snarky letter to the FFA, thanking the hate group for helping to make Gay Days weekend 2013 the most successful ever by publicizing the event.
