WATCH: Disney PSA of Boy With Two Moms Incites Right-Wing Outrage

The ultraconservative Media Research Center objects to the offhand mention of a teen's two mothers in a spot in Disney's 'Make Your Mark' campaign.

Trudy Ring

Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.

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Trudy Ring

January 01 2013 3:43 PM EST

November 17 2015 5:28 AM EST

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A video in the Disney Channel's "Make Your Mark" public service campaign has drawn the wrath of a conservative media watchdog group because it features a teenager with lesbian parents.

In the spot, a 14-year-old named Ben introduces viewers to his world, which includes "my moms," with a brief clip of two women, then goes on to tell how he made a film denouncing bullying.

The offhand mention of his two mothers was too much the right-wing Media Research Center, which touts its mission as "exposing and combating liberal media bias." In a post on the center's NewsBustersblog, director of media analysis Tim Graham notes a gay blogger's praise for the spot and asserts that "activists want Disney to lead the way toward 'LGBT' acceptance among the grade-school set."

Mediaite blogger Andrew Kirell takes Graham to task for being so upset about this "teeny tiny snippet of information at 12 seconds into the video."

"In the mind of the likes of Graham and his boss Brent Bozell (who has his own record with 'the gays')," Kirell writes, "by not hiding the cold hard fact that little Ben was raised by a lesbian couple, Disney Channel is now complicit in 'normalizing' 'the gays' and indoctrinating school-aged kids into believing that Ben's 'two moms' (Graham's scare-quotes) is an acceptable thing not worthy of endless scorn and shame."