Television’s Fall Schedule: The Homosexual Agenda Advances

Back in 1989, a psychologist and an advertising executive set out to redefine the homosexual movement. Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen outlined their plan in After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the ’90s–one of the most controversial books ever to emerge from the homosexual community.

Kirk and Madsen were convinced that the gay rights movement was in danger of failure, largely because homosexual behavior was so different from the norm and repulsive to most Americans. As these authors saw the situation, the homosexual agenda was going nowhere so long as flamboyant drag queens and the North American Man-Boy Love Association [NAMBLA] dominated the headlines. Unless something changed, mainstream Americans would continue to be repulsed, offended, and hardened in their resistance to the gay rights movement.

With this in mind, Kirk and Madsen developed a six-point agenda to advance the homosexual cause. At the center of their approach was one inflexible point–make homosexuality and homosexuals look as normal as possible. Their first commandment, therefore, was to “talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible.” Almost fifteen years after the book’s publication, it is clear that the approach is working.

If the portrayal of homosexuality in the upcoming television season can be described in two words, loud and often would be the right words to choose. According to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation [GLAAD], the new television schedule is playing their tune, pushing the gay agenda through homosexual characters and story lines.

GLAAD just released its annual analysis of LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender] characters on television and declared that “this season’s line-up marks a critical step forward in representations of same-sex relationships and families.” A closer look reveals that this “critical step forward” for the homosexual agenda is an understatement.

In reality, producers and networks are falling over themselves to prove their alliance with the homosexual activists. Groups like GLAAD work full-time pushing television executives and writers to advance their cause. They review scripts and demand character and story lines that advance their cause by portraying gays and lesbians in the most favorable light. Kirk and Madsen’s fourth commandment, “make gays look good,” has become a virtual law in Hollywood and on the television screen. GLAAD’s latest report offers undeniable proof.

The report points to new shows like ABC’s It’s All Relative, a show featuring a gay male couple with a college-age daughter. The Fox Channel’s fall line-up will include another homosexual couple in A Minute With Stan Hooper. On this show, “Pete” and “Lou” are two men who “own and operate a local diner and consider themselves married.”

GLAAD executive director Joan M. Garry claimed these two shows as a major advance for her cause. “For the first time on a broadcast network, the real-life experience of thousands of gay and lesbian families will be mirrored on television.” She continued on a personal note: “My partner of 22 years and I can finally look at our three children and tell them there is a family on television that looks like us.”

Beyond this, Garry pointed to NBC’s Coupling and CBS’s Two and a Half Men as proof of “a summer of unprecedented LGBT visibility following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas.” She had every reason to be pleased. From the summer’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to Boy Meets Boy, television is now pushing the gay agenda into America’s homes.

There are still areas for development, insists Garry, for there are no transgender characters and only one new lesbian character in the fall’s broadcast schedule. Just give them time.

Homosexual content is even more explicit and pervasive on cable schedules, where “multi-dimensional gay and lesbian relationships are a staple of cable network programming” and homosexual characters are portrayed “in complex romantic and sexual relationships.” Complex? The complexity boggles the mind.

A full analysis of all homosexual characters is provided on GLAAD’s web site under the heading, “Where We Are On TV.” The characters–old and new–are listed by show and identified by “orientation” and ethnicity. It’s quite a list.

Television is one of the most powerful influences in the culture. The television screen presents what Hollywood producers, executives, and writers think will attract viewers. But, as the GLAAD report makes clear, the screen also presents a vision of what the cultural elite wants us to see as normal, as well as attractive and acceptable. They are winning.

GLAAD describes its work as “promoting or ensuring fair, accurate and inclusive representations of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.” They work at this with a passionate devotion to their cause, and with eager partners in the entertainment industry. Hollywood is now the center of an entertainment system that reaches into every American home in one way or another. In most homes, that reach comes through many avenues simultaneously.

The GLAAD report was written as an insider document for the homosexual community, but it also serves as a warning to the rest of us of what is to come. America’s toxic entertainment culture is going to be more even more poisonous to Christian morality in the next television season. The natural family is now just one option among others. Almost any combination of persons will now be recognized by Hollywood as a family. Homosexual characters and couples “in complex romantic and sexual relationships” will become regular fare.

There is little reason for hope that Hollywood will be reformed–at least anytime soon. The entertainment industry is an industry after all. Writers, actors, and producers will press the envelope, but the fact remains that the advertising slots are selling and someone is watching. We are on the losing side in Hollywood.

Christians–especially parents–must ask themselves why we would allow this propaganda for immorality into our homes. The most important part on the television is now the “off” button.