The 'Good News' About Gay Teens
If anyone doubts that our entertainment industry and our
entertainment media are evangelists for a revolution of sexual
immorality (or in their lingo, "progress"), he needs only to read the
latest cover story in Entertainment Weekly magazine, a "special report"
on gay teen characters on TV, and "How a bold new class of young gay
characters on shows like 'Glee' is changing hearts, minds, and
Hollywood."
Gay "Glee" actor Chris Colfer and his boyfriend on
the show, Darren Criss, lovingly put their heads together on the cover.
Colfer just won a Golden Globe for his part, which is another way the
Hollywood press rewards propagandizing the youth of America. In his
acceptance speech, he lamented anyone who would say a discouraging word
about teen homosexuality, somehow putting all of those words in mouths
of bullies: "Screw that, kids!"
In this cover story, Colfer
likens the gay couple he and Criss play to beloved and iconic
teen-romance "Happy Days" characters from the 1970s: "They're kind of
like the Joanie and Chachi of our generation," he suggests. That line
was played up in large promotional type over a full-page photograph of
the couple.
Their
most controversial scene was the two private school boys singing "Baby,
It's Cold Outside" to each other on the Fox show. "That was the gayest
thing that has ever been on TV, period," Colfer boasted. The magazine
touted this was the hottest-selling track on the "Glee" Christmas
album, which gives you a flavor of Hollywood's reverence for that holy
day.
As you might suspect, Entertainment Weekly didn't plan to
debate gay teen propaganda, but to encourage it, energetically. Not a
single soul had anything critical to say. Not even a question. If this
magazine weren't so earnestly in the tank, the story could come with a
disclaimer: "This issue is an advertisement bought and paid for by the
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation."
Writer Jennifer
Armstrong summed it up like this: "The good news: Young gay characters
are on a momentous roll after years of stops and starts." EW championed
under the inside headline how "networks are making up for years of
on-air silence and providing inspiration for real-life youth (and
parents) still searching for answers." Armstrong says gay characters
are "not just an accepted, but expected part of
teen-centric television." (Emphasis hers.)
They are not celebrating diversity. They are intimidating dissidents.
In
their Gay Teen Timeline, we hear the gay actors proclaiming the lack of
opposition. "We never received a negative word," says the gay actor on
ABC's 1994 bomb "My So-Called Life." The gay teen on ABC's "Ugly Betty"
insisted "99 percent of the public response was positive." Translation:
get in line.
One of the leading cable channels in this revolution
is ABC Family, which has come a very long distance from its origins as
a Pat Robertson channel. Entertainment Weekly crowed that they top
GLAAD's "Network Responsibility Index" - as in, you have a
responsibility to engage in didactic pro-gay messaging. Most of ABC
Family's teen shows seem to have a sympathetic gay character: "Greek,"
"Huge," Pretty Little Liars," and "The Secret Life of the American
Teenager."
ABC Family vice president Kate Juergens underlined
that the children are expecting this: "With our millennial audience,
it's what they expect to see...'Don't Ask Don't Tell' was such a
vestige of an older generation."
But there is always a new trail
to blaze. Teen Nick's grope opera "Degrassi" has had eight gay
characters, and is now normalizing "Adam," a female-to-male transgender
teen. Co-creator Linda Schuyler proclaimed "People are realizing that
the lines of sexuality are not just drawn between gay guys and lesbian
girls, but there is a sliding scale of sexuality, and that's something
new."
No one should be surprised that Armstrong and her GLAAD
allies are also pushing to take the pro-gay message to grade-schoolers.
Armstrong complained gay characters are "entirely absent from
mainstream sitcoms and tween networks like Disney Channel and
Nickelodeon." Disney Channel issued the magazine a vague statement
about their "responsibility to present age-appropriate programming for
millions of kids age 6-14 around the world."
"Age-appropriate" is
not a term these activists recognize. Parents should understand that
their young children are the next propaganda targets.
