Q Toon: Coming Attractions

Bill Condon, the director of Disney's live-action adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast" recently told British LGBT magazine Attitude that the film would include the first openly gay character in a Disney film. Leaving aside the possibility that Gaston's sidekick LeFou was gay in the animated version (you'd have to ask Jesse Corti or Gary Truesdale, and TMZ didn't), there is a long history of characters in children's cartoons, Disney and otherwise, who inhabit the upper end of the Kinsey scale.

You can ask Jafar, Snagglepuss, Hermey the Elf, Velma Dinkley, or any character voiced by Charles Nelson Reilly about their life in the closet.

There is a price to be paid for coming out, and Carol Laney, the owner of the Henagar Drive-In Theatre in Alabama, is leading the charge. She announced that because of her Christian beliefs, she will refuse to show "Beauty and the Beast" on her screen.

"My salvation isn't about money. It's not about men. It's what God wants me to do," she said. "We will not be playing movies that have sex. We will not be playing movies that have nudity. It's my choice."

As the owner of an open-air movie theater, that is certainly her right. She hasn't said which other biblical injunctions will not be allowed on her screen, but the Ten Commandments alone would leave her very little cinematography to choose from.

Since she only recently became owner of the Henagar Drive-In Theatre, I didn't make Laney the antagonist in this week's cartoon, who needed to have been in business since at least 1991. I would like to give her props, however, for retaining the traditional spelling of "Theatre"; I had to force myself against my will to adhere to the Associated Press Stylebook.