How 25 Years of Gay Activism in Hollywood Has Paid Off

[Jolie Rouge]

How 25 Years of Gay Activism in Hollywood Has Paid Off[i]
by Robert Knight

If you’re noticing your TV screen turning pink, it’s not just your imagination.

The new broadcast TV season includes 22 series featuring a total of 35 openly gay characters, according to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). GLAAD, which rides herd over all Hollywood scripts dealing with homosexuality, says the number of series with homosexual characters is a record. These series are on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and the CW networks. The total figure does not include shows on cable, like The L Word on Showtime, or MTV’s all-gay LOGO network.

A new Eye on Culture report from the Culture and Media Institute, “Lavender Propaganda,” reveals the depth and breadth of the current media campaign to promote homosex-uality to average Americans. But Hollywood became a uni-formly pro-gay industry well before Will & Grace or the slew of 2008-9 network shows.

In 1996, the year before Ellen DeGeneres “came out” as a lesbian on Ellen, Los Angeles magazine writer David Ehrenstein boasted in a May cover story, “More than Friends”: “There are openly gay writers on almost every major prime-time situation comedy you can think of … In short, when it comes to sitcoms, gays rule.”

Here is an excerpt from my book The Age of Consent: The Rise of Relativism and the Corruption of Popular Culture about the gay influence on TV: “Ehrenstein, a professed homosexual, cheerfully admits that gay writers are attempting to influence viewers with a homosexual agenda:

‘The gay and lesbian writers of today have been pushing the envelope any chance they get. In fact, they’re encouraged to do so. Since current comedies are positively obsessed with the intimate sex lives of straight young singles, who better to write them than members of a minority famed for its sexual candor … as a result of the in-flux of gay writers, even the most heterosexual of sitcoms often possess that most elusive of undertones – the “gay sensibility”—‘Frasier’ being a case in point.’ “The ‘gay sensibility consists, according to two homo-sexual writers, of ‘a very urban, very educated, ironic, detached, iconoclastic attitude.’ Plus, a deliberate over-dose of sexuality.”

In her 1989 book Target: Primetime: Advocacy Groups and the Struggle over Entertainment Television, Kathryn Mont-gomery explains why homosexual activists have been part-icularly effective in Hollywood: “Gays had one important advantage over other groups. They referred to it as their ‘agents in place.’ According to gay activists, there were a substantial number of gay people working in the television industry who were not open about their life-style. Some held high-level positions. While unable to promote the gay cause on the inside, they could be very helpful to advocates on the outside, especially by leaking information. These ‘agents in place’ became one of the linchpins of gay media strategy.” [/quote]

In January 1973, Ron Gold, the New York-based Gay Activist Alliance’s Media Director, wrote to all three networks, requesting meetings. Gold, who had been a reporter for Variety, also helped stage a hostile confrontation at ABC that was strikingly similar to the strong-arm tactics em-ployed at the American Psychiatric Association convention in 1971, when gay activists openly threatened psychiatr-ists who viewed homosexuality as a treatable disorder.

As Montgomery reports:

“Before a meeting had been scheduled with ABC, GAA members were smuggled a script by one of their agents in place. It was for an upcoming episode of Marcus Welby, M.D., entitled ‘The Other Martin Loring’ and it concerned a married man who asked Dr. Welby to help him with his homosexual tendencies. Welby assured the man that as long as he suppressed his homosexual desires, he would not fail as a husband and father.

“As Gold remembers, GAA leaders ‘blew a cork’ when they read the script. ….Instead of waiting for an appointment with ABC executives, the activists – with the help of another network insider – ‘took over’ the network executive offices. Recalls Gold: ‘We knew somebody who worked there who gave us a kind of place of the place and we did a little scouting in advance and we managed to sneak into the offices. The confrontation at ABC headquarters was hostile and explosive.”

It ended with the arrests of several activists. Montgomery notes that although the program in question still aired, “it did have an impact on later decisions….ABC executives decided to invite gay activist comments on any new scripts dealing with homosexuality. Since gays had their own ways of getting scripts anyway, this approach was even more essential than with other groups.”

The other networks soon followed, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation now routinely vets all TV scripts dealing with homosexuality to make sure that the public sees only what the activists want. That means, among other things, no programs showing “ex-gays,” people who have overcome homosexual temptations, unless it is to mock them.

Montgomery summarizes: “In time, the gay activists gained a reputation within the industry as the most sophisticated and successful advocacy group operating in network television.”

The stakes go far beyond television. A September 2008 fund-raising mailer from GLAAD proclaims:

“History proves that social change drives legal and political progress. To succeed as a community, we must transform the way millions of Americans feel about us.”

With a record number of homosexual characters on tele-vision, and only pro-gay story lines, it’s not surprising that polls show that Americans are becoming increasingly accepting of homosexuality.

The activists are well on their way toward their goal of recasting traditional sexual morality as a form of bigotry. The next step will be to bring government muscle down on traditionalists – just like they’re doing right now in Canada and Europe.

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[meltodd69]

Boy this new lineup will upset DH. He gets so upset with TV and Movies. We know there are gay people, and have no problem with it. But don't push it on people. He even thinks there should be a warning label on shows that push it. Where is the censorship for that? Guess we won't be watching to much TV LOL. Thanks for the warning.

[JKATHERINE]

Good! I think it's evidence that the American people are finally becoming more tolerant.

Boy this new lineup will upset DH. He gets so upset with TV and Movies. We know there are gay people, and have no problem with it. But don't push it on people. He even thinks there should be a warning label on shows that push it. Where is the censorship for that? Guess we won't be watching to much TV LOL. Thanks for the warning.

A warning label? LOL Ok, here you go!

WARNING: By watching this show, you may witness examples of REALITY. If you currently reside a place where your head is in the clouds (or up your arse), please change the channel.

[renaissanceman]

I started talking about the "Homosexual Agenda" in another thread that got closed.

One can go there for information about reading up on this so you can make up your OWN mind.

http://www.bigbigforums.com/news-inf...l#post96020304

[janelle]

I would say it is reality if they also showed those who are not wanting to live that lifestyle. Those who hare married and want to stay true to their vows.

All they show is homosexuality is a good thing and a lifestyle to be strived for if you have any feeling in that direction. It discounts all those who are having sexual identity problems and trying to figure out where to go. Those who want to remain straight.

Those people should be offended they are dismissed.

[DrHolliday]

Our ex-mayor pushed a homosexual agenda (attended a gay parade and always talked about, "Diversity").

Tolerance is one thing. But when you start force feeding people something, they get tired of it real quick.

[JKATHERINE]

I would say it is reality if they also showed those who are not wanting to live that lifestyle. Those who hare married and want to stay true to their vows.

All they show is homosexuality is a good thing and a lifestyle to be strived for if you have any feeling in that direction. It discounts all those who are having sexual identity problems and trying to figure out where to go. Those who want to remain straight.

Those people should be offended they are dismissed.

Those who want to remain straight? Oh, you mean those people who aren't brainwashed and influenced by television and Hollywood figures? People don't just wake up one day and say, "You know, I've been watching a lot of Will & Grace" lately and I think I want to be gay like Jack and Will!"

The relationships of other people shown on television and movies in no way affects the strong and healthy heterosexual marriage that I have with my husband. On that same note, dysfunctional or abusive heterosexual marriages also have no bearing on my marriage.

I don't think television promotes homosexuality. I think it shows that homosexuality is just part of life. If someone with a "sexual identity crisis" is turning to television and movies to help guide them then they have problems that are worse than sexual identity.

[cSoReNSoN]

The gay agenda is set to destroy America, while converting heterosexuals by the millions.

[Jolie Rouge]

I remeber when "NYPD Blue" was going to show a man's bare butt on Network TV after 9 o'clock and everyone got hysterical. Some not so much for the nudity - they have show women's bare hinny's before, so we should get to see a guy's, right ? But because it showed a progressive lowering of standards. Now they have curse words and hyperactive sexual antics from 5 o'clock on. While I think "Three and a Half Men" is amusing it is not appropriate for kids, drinking, drug use, hot and cold running women ... yesterday's episode featured a running gag on how Charlie "tricked" Alan into sexually using as a child a succesion of items... including a melon, a Thanksgiving turkey, a vaccum ... and the real reason Mom got rid of the dog ... involving Allan, the family pet and a jar of peanut butter... Yes... this is wholesome viewing for kids.

People wonder why I won't have cable ? I barely allow network programing anymore.

[Jolie Rouge]

A warning label? LOL Ok, here you go!

WARNING: By watching this show, you may witness examples of REALITY. If you currently reside a place where your head is in the clouds (or up your arse), please change the channel.

The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to JKATHERINE For This Useful Post: ahippiechic (Today), cSoReNSoN (Today)

Interesting: how conservatives are allowed to be mocked on this forum ... with moderator approval ... but WOE to anyone who offends a liberal's sensabilites.


Freedom of Speech for Me, But Not For Thee ?

[janelle]

Tell the man I met who was into the gay lifestyle but didn't want to live that way and is now married with children he is freaking out of his mind.

I don't think he would agree with you. He may still have some of those feelings but he doesn't want to live gay, he wants to live straight. We all have our crosses to bare.

Go tell him he is stupid. Where did choice go in our society? Liberals are fine until they see people doing what they think is wrong and then they know what is best for them and PC.