Ed Vitagliano

AFA Journal news editor

Second in a series examining the state of the homosexual rights movement.'

March 1999 – When presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan warned the 1992 Republican National Convention about an ongoing “culture war,” he was fairly spat upon by liberals who viewed the speech as hateful agitation.

More than six years later, however, nearly everyone across the political spectrum admits that there is, in fact, an unremitting ideological war underway. And nowhere is that conflict more evident than in the bitter, hand-to-hand combat now going on between those who view homosexuality as unnatural, immoral and unhealthy, and those who seek to overthrow that view.

The most sought-after trophies of the homosexual movement are not found in corporate boardrooms, state legislatures, or even Hollywood. The ultimate prizes are the hearts and minds of children. In schools and in public libraries, on television and at the movies, from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., children in this country are being exposed to a constant, concerted propaganda effort that aims to instill a homosexual worldview.

Evangelizing young hearts and minds
Perhaps no network television show better highlighted this strategy than Disney/ABC’s controversial sitcom Ellen. That show made history when its main character, played by lesbian actress Ellen DeGeneres, declared her homosexuality on an infamous episode in the Spring of 1997.

But as the new lesbian flavor of the show became its hallmark during the Fall ’97 season, resulting in more same-sex affection than ever before on the networks, ABC began preceeding the show with a parental advisory warning of adult content. DeGeneres grew so angry she threatened to quit. “This advisory,” she said, “is telling kids something’s wrong with being gay.”

It was a revealing statement, for one of DeGeneres’ explicit goals was, in fact, to let kids know that there is something right with being homosexual. Upon receiving an Emmy Award for her sitcom, for example, the actress told the Academy of TV Arts & Sciences that she was accepting the trophy on behalf of “the teenagers especially out there who think there’s something wrong with them because they’re gay, and there’s nothing wrong with you; don’t ever let anyone make you feel ashamed of who you are.”

Even in preparing the much ballyhooed coming-out episode, the effect on those children who might be watching was in the minds of the show’s producers. Remarking that “a lot of kids go through” the same coming-out anxieties as DeGeneres’ character on the show, Ellen executive producer Dava Savel said, “If this episode helps some child in the Midwest with their sexual identification, we’ve done our job.”

In the effort to subtly indoctrinate kids, homosexual activists even intend to use as an instrument television programming targeted specifically to children. In 1995, for example, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) called on the federal government to set guidelines requiring children’s TV programs to educate kids against “homophobia” and “discrimination based on sexual orientation.”

Al Kielwasser, a San Francisco spokesman for GLAAD, said, “Inexcusably, broadcasters continue to overlook the enormous potential of children’s television for combating homophobia.”

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has apparently taken GLAAD’s recommendation to heart. The website for the PBS children’s show Puzzle Place says, “Using a lively combination of song, story, comedy, puppets and lots of fun, this series sows the seeds of self-esteem and respect for others in young children.” While such a statement sounds harmless on the surface, not all the “seeds” which Puzzle Place “sows…in young children” are innocuous. An episode in October entitled “Family Fun” taught its young viewers that “there are many different kinds of families, including same-sex parents.”

Dodging parents
While activists attempt to persuade adults to support the homosexual rights movement, they see most adults as supporters of this culture’s “homophobic” mentality. For activists, the perceived anti-homosexual bigotry in many adults can be suppressed, but never conquered.

In the Spring of 1998, for example, the folk rock duo the Indigo Girls were scheduled to give a free concert at a South Carolina high school. But when parents protested because of the group’s outspoken lesbianism, the concert was canceled.

This sort of resolute resistance to the normalization of homosexuality frustrates and angers homosexual activists. One of the Indigo Girls, Amy Ray, said, “A minority composed of homophobic, narrow-minded parents and weak-kneed principals and school boards have successfully enforced a policy of hate.”

Such disdain for what they see as adult bigotry is unmistakable in the radical activists. Urvashi Vaid, former executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said children should be a special target for homosexual rights activists in the attempt to change society.

“Coming out [publicly as a homosexual] never ceases. Don’t give in to complacency; they don’t know until you tell them,” Vaid says in her agenda-setting book, Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay & Lesbian Liberation. “Tell your family, especially the younger nieces, nephews and others, before they adopt prejudicial attitudes!” (Emphasis in the original.)

For these homosexual crusaders, the moral and religious views of parents are to be rejected if they contradict the philosophy of the homosexual rights movement, and if necessary, the authority of parents is to be circumvented.

In XY Magazine, directed to homosexual youth, writer Indigo Escobar drives just such a wedge between parent and child. What should kids do, Escobar asks, when parents install filtering software on the home computer which blocks access to homosexual websites? “If your parents disagree with you – well, they’re wrong and you are right. This is part of separating from your parents and becoming your own person, and if they force you to get gay youth information behind their back – that’s their fault and their problem.”

Going “behind your parents’ backs” is precisely what Escobar advises, telling young people how they can get to homosexual websites despite parental disapproval. Escobar tells kids that such access is important, “so be tricky” in circumventing their parents’ wishes.

What is so important that the adult writers for XY Magazine would advise children to disobey their parents? The magazine issue in which Escobar advocated being “tricky” also gives tips to kids on coming out to their parents, advises young people to use condoms when they have “hot sex,” and has a “personals” section where homosexuals can “meet the dude of your dreams.”

Young people who are confused about their sexuality find plenty of advice from adult homosexuals in XY. “This [your homosexual orientation] is who you are, it’s a good thing, and it’s not going to change,” says Pete Helvey, President of Infiniti Web Design, writing in the magazine. When counseling kids about revealing their homosexuality, Helvey says, “The main thing is finding someone who won’t try to change your mind [about being homosexual], but will just accept it.”

XY Magazine also contains a full page ad listing homosexual organizations eager to talk with youth, staffed by homosexual adults as counselors. The page is sponsored by The National Coalition for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Youth.

Hoping for a new generation
For activists, the success of their long-range goals seems centered on persuading children to accept homosexuality as a normal variation of human sexuality. That is the attitude of outspoken homosexual and actor Harvey Fierstein. His career has been given a big boost with roles in films popular with children and young adults, such as Independence Day, Mrs. Doubtfire, and as the voice of Yao in the Disney animated film Mulan.

But Fierstein is eagerly awaiting an HBO animated children’s special entitled The Sissy Duckling, which he calls “the first gay-positive children’s story on TV.” According to The Washington Blade, a newspaper targeting the homosexual community, the film is loosely based on the old favorite The Ugly Duckling, except the main character is a five-year-old who is, Fierstein said, “quite a little sissy.” Lesbian entertainers DeGeneres, Anne Heche, and Melissa Etheridge have purportedly agreed to help perform the voices for the animated movie.

Fierstein is enjoying the work aimed at the younger generation, but his motive is frightening. “It would be wonderful to have a generation grow up not frightened of gay people. We can’t reach a lot of their parents, but we can reach kids, and if they grow up without being full of hate, we can have hope,” he said.

Some advocates for the homosexual agenda, like Ellen executive producer and head writer Tim Doyle, are more blunt. “It’s hard to blaze a trail and progress is slow, but there’s a whole generation that’s now grown up with homosexuality and doesn’t think that’s so extraordinary,” he told Daily Variety. “There’s a group of older people that will never accept it, but there are a lot of empty cemeteries, and when they’re filled, the world will be more tolerant.”

Winning the war
Children are targeted because homosexual activists see them as holding the keys to tomorrow. In The Advocate, lesbian author Patricia Nell Warren issued what was intended to be a warning about the goals of “religious extremists” in this country: “It is the first fact of civilization,” she said. “Whoever captures the kids owns the future.” Warren, of course, was warning the homosexual readers of her article that if activists didn’t get busy, religious fanatics would be successful. The converse of that, however, was also implicit: if homosexual activists get busy, then they can win the allegiance of children.

As Machiavellian as it may seem, the success of the radical homosexual agenda is partly dependent on persuading children today that homosexuality is normal – to ensure that they will become adult
allies tomorrow.  

For other articles in this series, see AFA Journal, February, April, May, and June 1999.