"Homosexual
activists" are at it again. Just when you thought it was safe to watch
prime time TV, gay propagandists have taken airwaves and are doing everything
they can to make teenagers gay.
At least
that's what Brent Bozell wants you to believe. This isn't surprising, of
course, since Bozell is the president of the Media Research Center, an
organization that purports to seek "balance" in the media, but that
really seeks dominance of Christian conservative views. Bozell blasted gay teen
characters on TV in a recent column, writing, "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, a 'special report' on
gay teen characters on TV."
The EW
cover features "Glee" actors Chris Colfer and Darren Criss who play
boyfriends on the show. Bozell is especially rankled by a scene that appeared
in a "Glee" Christmas episode.
"Their
most controversial scene was the two private-school boys singing 'Baby, It's
Cold Outside' to each other on the Fox show," Bozell writes. "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."
Bozell
also notes that Colfer told EW, "That was the gayest thing that has ever
been on TV, period."
Full
disclosure: I have never watched "Glee." I have no interest in it and
I have a myriad of other ways to waste my time and life, thank you very much.
But I obviously had a journalistic duty to watch the so-called "gayest
thing that has ever been on TV." And so I watched the clip on YouTube. And
I have to say, I can understand Bozell's concern. I mean, what on earth is Kurt
(Colfer) doing with his tongue in this scene? Dude, you're singing, you're not
eating an ice cream cone. Put your tongue back in your face. And all of the coy
eye rolling. Yuck. I don't understand why Blaine (Darren Criss) wants him to
stay. Colfer won a Golden Globe for this schmaltz?
Of
course, Bozell's problem isn't with "Glee's" quality of acting or the
cheesiness of sentiment, but with "Glee's" inclusion of gay
characters, specifically gay teens. This is, of course, the opposite problem I
have with the show. I'm all for positive portrayals of gay teens on TV. I have
no doubt that there are kids out there who watch Kurt and Blaine and, as a
result, feel like they aren't alone and that they're okay. And that's great.
Or
terrible, if you're Bozell. The EW story was nothing but propaganda, he says,
because EW didn't ask people like him -- people who have had unfettered
dissemination of their anti-gay rhetoric for far too long -- to talk about how
horrible gay people are.
"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
& Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation,'" Bozell writes.
Of
course, Bozell believes that teenagers are only a stepping-stone to the real
goal: babies.
"Parents
should understand that their young children are the next propaganda
targets," he warns.
Oh,
please. As if two gay teenagers singing a corny holiday song to each other on
TV is just a stepping-stone to mandatory viewings of "RuPaul's Drag
Race" in kindergarten classrooms across the nation. And even if it did,
that wouldn't make kids gay. It might, however, make them a little more sassy.