Poor Sgt. Rock. Were he around today, the grizzled infantryman
who’s WWII combat exploits thrilled a generation of boys might find himself sitting
through sexual orientation sensitivity training in the post-Don’t Ask-Don’t
Tell Army. And he’d be hard pressed to recognize his old DC Comics area of
operations.
In an upcoming release, DC’s openly lesbian Batwoman character will be shown kissing her lover while proposing marriage [1]. And now, Batgirl has a transgendered roommate [2]. These are not your father’s comic books.
Like the rest of American pop culture, comic books have increasingly included pro-gay propaganda pieces aimed at the children and young adults who read them. Not to be outdone by DC’s super-heroic sexual diversity, Marvel released a comic a few weeks ago where “Wolverine and Hercules share a gay kiss [3],” as reported by The Huffington Post.
Gay characters began appearing in comics in the early 90s but this agenda-based tactic has been employed more frequently in the past 10 years. In 2006, an Advocate story titled “How Gay is Superman?” led the way for the “turn your favorite superhero characters gay [4]” trend. Since then, comic book writers have been aggressively promoting politics in their stories.
In 2010, the wholesome Archie Comics debuted its first gay character [5] (no, Jughead didn’t come out), and last year celebrated a gay wedding [6]. Last summer, Marvel comics had its gay X-Men character “Northstar” propose to his boyfriend [7] while DC reinvented the original Green Lantern superhero as homosexual [8].
In December, Star Trek icon and gay activist George Takei [9] was featured as a guest character in Archie’s with his partner. Archie also announced this week characters from the uber-gay tv show “Glee” will come to the comic book’s universe [10].
On the other hand, defenders of traditional marriage are cast a villains every bit as evil as the Joker or Lex Luther.
A few weeks ago, gay activists threw a fit when they found out that Mormon science fiction author Orson Scott Card would contribute to an upcoming Superman comic. The gay activist group All Out even started a petition [11] calling for the popular author to be sacked after DC Comics announced he would author the first chapter [12]. The digital comic will be released in April but the petition has 16,000 signatures already.
Card is most famous for his young adult fantasy classic “Ender’s Game” published in 1985, also to be adapted in an upcoming film. Since a contentious Salon interview in 2000 and a subsequent essay in 2004 [13], where Card made a case that gay marriage would be harmful to society, gay activists have been hounding him as a “homophobe” and “bigot [14],” simply for affirming the traditional understanding of marriage.
The Huffington Post reported [15] scathingly that Card was “anti-gay” and “homophobic” for his prior involvement with the traditional marriage non-profit The National Organization for Marriage and for past comments he made coming against the notion of gay marriage.
Unsurprisingly, there’s no public uproar or call for writers to be fired for pushing their gay agenda, because what press this gaying of comics has gotten has been favorable.
At this rate, it’s not unimaginable that there’s a Sgt, Rock #45 in the works – a modern update in which the battle-hardened Iraq/Afghanistan vet and his life-partner save the Academy Awards from a terrorist attack.