Claims to Have 41 Million Members
A Christian group is claiming its poll finds that almost all “faith driven consumers” are less likely to see Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” because of what is described as a brief “gay moment” towards the end of the film. The group, Faith Driven Consumer, puts together lists of businesses it says reflect its Christian values, urges members to contact those that don’t, and defends religious right culture leaders, like Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson, when they come under attack.
Deadline Hollywood calls the organization an “intolerant fringe group.”
“95% of Faith Driven Consumers are less likely to see BEAUTY AND THE BEAST due to Disney’s decision to include an ‘exclusively gay moment’ in the film,” the group, which claims to have 41 million members, reveals on its website.Â
The group also claims that “94% of Faith Driven Consumers are now less likely to spend money with Disney as a whole in light of the ‘exclusively gay moment’ in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, coming on top of Disney’s long-standing pattern.” It does not explain what “long standing pattern” means.
The poll claims that nearly six in 10 “Faith Driven Consumers think the primary motivation behind Disney’s decision to include an ‘exclusively gay moment’ in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was ‘to normalize homosexuality.'”
It does not state if they believe that is good or bad.Â
The poll of 6,700 members of the Faith Driven Consumer community was conducted online. It offers almost no details on its methodology, including how respondents were chosen, what the margins of error are, age group breakdowns, etc.
A 2016 Gallup poll found 61 percent of Americans believe same-sex marriage should be legal. Also last year, a Pew poll found 63% of Americans homosexuality should be accepted by society.
An email to the organization inquiring about its methodology and how it arrived at claiming 41 million members has yet to receive a response.
UPDATE:
Faith Driven Consumer’s research director has reached out to NCRM promising a response to our inquiry. Stay tuned.
UPDATE II:
Via Faith Driven Consumer’s research director: “The Faith Driven Consumer organization maintains relationships with more than 250,000 Faith Driven Consumers via email, Facebook, etc. We shared this online Qualtrics survey with the FDC community (via email and our Facebook page) and invited them to respond with their perspectives.”
To frame this for our readers, NCRM has close to 400,000 fans/followers on Facebook, and about 25,000 members we can reach out to via email. We have another 140,000 or so followers on Twitter. We can put a poll together whenever we want. It wouldn’t be scientifically accurate.
As far as their claim to have 41 million members:
“We conducted an online national survey of 2,400 Christians in 2014 to derive benchmark insights on Faith Driven Consumers. We asked 2,400 Christians a battery of questions that determined the degree to which their faith informs their daily life choices, including where they work, where they shop, what they buy and the entertainment they choose to enjoy. Based on this data, we determined that approximately 17% of U.S. adults – 41 million people – are Faith Driven Consumers.”
We’ll leave it up to you to determine how you choose to view that statement.
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‘Beauty and the Beast’: Teach Your Children That We Are All Just Human
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Image by Thomas Hawk via Flickr and a CC license