LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)–Christians voiced their outrage when ABC’s “Ellen” featured a lead lesbian character in 1997.
That outrage, five years later, has dissipated — even though there are now more than 20 homosexual characters on television, lamented Focus on the Family’s Mike Haley, who spoke at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary March 5 during a day-long presentation for students.
“The moral standard is being lowered in regards to issues of sexuality,” said Haley, Focus on the Family’s director of youth and gender studies. “… We’re shrugging our shoulders at the issue of homosexuality.”
Haley was part of a team from the Colorado-based ministry founded by psychologist James Dobson who briefed the seminary community on current issues related to homosexuality, with an aim toward formulating a biblical response.
As an example of Christians being desensitized to the issue of homosexuality, Haley compared the fanfare surrounding ABC’s “Ellen” and NBC’s “Will & Grace.” Much controversy surrounded the “coming out” episode of Ellen in 1997. However, there was much less controversy when NBC’s Will & Grace premiered in 1998 with a lead male gay character.
“While we had Ellen coming out, saying, ‘I’m gay, deal with it,’ now we have Will and Grace coming out saying, ‘I’m gay, so what?'” he said.
Quoting statistics from the activist organization Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation that tracks the number of homosexual characters on television, Haley said there are 25 such characters on TV.
The shows featuring homosexual characters are NBC’s “ER,” “Providence,” “Will & Grace” and “Friends”; ABC’s “Spin City” and “NYPD Blue”; CBS’ “Education of Max Bickford” and “The Ellen Show”; FOX’s “Dark Angel” and “The Simpsons”; and WB’s “Dawson’s Creek,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Felicity.”
“You can see how many of these shows are geared toward our youth,” Haley said.
While the number of homosexual characters this year decreased from the previous year (28), the references to homosexuality increased, Haley said.
“What we realized is now it’s becoming so mainstream that the heterosexual couples and the heterosexual individuals on the shows are joking about it and are trying to mainstream the issue of homosexuality,” he said.
For instance, Haley said, the female lead character on FOX’s “Ally McBeal” had an on-screen kiss with another woman in 1999. However, that same character is not counted in GLAAD’s statistics because the organization does not consider her character to be gay.
“While the number [of homosexual characters] is not increasing, the way that the issue is being dealt with is definitely increasing on television,” Haley said.
By putting such characters on television, the networks are trying to make homosexuality an accepted lifestyle in American society, he argued, quoting Eric McCormack — who is a heterosexual in real life but plays the gay character on Will & Grace — as saying, “When old ladies out there say, ‘Oh, I hope he meets a nice man,’ that’s when we’ll know the show has succeeded.”
Likewise, the national media has sided with gay activists by making Christian conservatives appear extreme, Haley said. The media does this, he said, by taking extremists such as Fred Phelps and tying them to men such as James Dobson. Phelps regularly leads members of his church around the country to picket gay rallies and funerals. There, they hold up signs that read “God Hates Fags.”
“They take individuals like Fred Phelps, marry them together with individuals like Dr. Dobson, (Southern Seminary President) Al Mohler — those that are speaking out on the issue of homosexuality — and make [them] look bad,” Haley said. “The media is doing a tremendous job of making those of us that believe that homosexuality is against God’s original intent look as if we’re hateful, homophobic and bigoted.”
The networks want Americans “to shrug our shoulders,” Haley said, “and basically be desensitized to the fact that God has said that this is against what he originally designed.”
Christians can do much to change the culture — including writing the networks and sponsors — but they must keep the issue in perspective, Haley said.
“While watching this can incite a lot of anger in us, I’d like to caution you to remember that while you may become angry — and I hope that you will do something productive with that anger — we [must] never forget that there are lost souls on the other side of that issue that need the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ that you and I have to give to them,” Haley said.
–30–
(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at https://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: FOCUS-LED BRIEFING.
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