Bozell Column: The 'Good News' About Gay Teens

January 28th, 2011 10:21 PM

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 <ital>expected<ital> 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.