But the title of the legislation is narrowly drawn; the empowerment it offers, focused solely on those parents worried about how interpersonal relationships and gender identity might come up in school curriculums. The bill makes the long-standing assumption that conversations about same-sex couples are necessarily conversations about sex, an assumption that doesn’t apply to non-gay couples. For that and other reasons, the bill has provoked an enormous backlash — including, now, from Disney.

One reason is simple. In part thanks to pressure from the company’s employees, Disney understands that American families don’t look the way they used to. Fox News — which has eagerly taken up DeSantis’s side in its feud with Mickey Mouse’s parent company — ran an entire story based on the complaints of two older people, one of whom said that “Walt [Disney] would be rolling over in his grave” at the company’s actions. In reality, what would probably have flummoxed the company’s founder is that the families who attend his park include parents of the same gender or different races and that more and more children these days are expressing themselves in ways that aren’t easy catalogued as “Dick” or “Jane.” That’s also not the world in which Fox’s men-on-the-street grew up......

That younger Americans are more liberal, particularly on issues related to race, gender and sexual identity, is one reason that corporations have been more willing to engage publicly on the subjects. It appears that the pressure Disney faced came from within, not from the public. But this has also increased awareness about corporate activism that often reflects positions that align with the political left, inspiring frustration and backlash from the right. A Republican governor attacking a prominent corporation in his state is also not in keeping with long-standing practice and would probably spur confusion for past Disney executives......

There’s a broader question here about why Republicans have suddenly reembraced rhetoric targeting gay Americans. The collapse of opposition to same-sex marriage a decade ago marked a shift in the national conversation about same-sex couples and gay people, but only on the surface. It seems clear that, as with the recent focus on the increased voice of non-White Americans, the rise in visibility for gay and transgender Americans has provoked a backlash. The perception is often that increased visibility for non-White or non-heterosexual people is a constraint on straight Whites or an encroachment on their power.