If there’s one thing kids in America hear too often, it’s how totally cool and fantastic homosexuality is. Once upon a time, there was a lot of antigay hate in schools: Kids would be called “fag” and teachers would look the other way; same-sex couples weren’t allowed to attend prom together; students would fight uphill battles to form a gay-straight alliance; antidiscrimination policies didn’t cover sexual orientation.
Thankfully, that’s all in the past and homosexuality is presented to kids as the new normal. Straight kids have been forced into the closet where they belong.
This is apparently the alternate universe where American Family Association’s Sandy Rios spends most of her time, where homosexuals have all the power and the heteros have none. Where all the cool kids are trying out gay sex positions while straight kids are doing something boring like reading the Bible.
And this is why, Rios says, young people are OK with same-sex marriage: They’re desensitized to its scary dangers.
“We hear so much, first of all, about young people being in favor of gay marriage and … I believe those stats are probably for the most part true and I believe it makes sense because our children, for the most part, have heard nothing but positive things about homosexuality and its effects — it’s kind of fun.”
You hear that? Homosexuality is the funnest! And kids love to have a gay old time. Never mind that by some estimates kids hear antigay slurs at school about 25 times a day. Not to worry, I’m sure they’re hearing pro-gay slurs way more often. In fact, when you read about the alarmingly high rate of LGBT kids who attempt suicide, the most common reason given is that the kid was just tired of hearing how awesome he was because he was gay. It’s a burden.
Rios has a novel target of blame for all of the pro-homosexuality shenanigans of late: “Say Yes to the Dress,” a show that Rios confesses she loves.
“We see ‘Say Yes to the Dress,’ which by the way I love, and we see the gay characters on that,” she muses. “[I]t is the face of the homosexual community that is only painted with a positive brush.”
Now I have not seen “Say Yes to the Dress,” but from what I can tell, it has to do with marriage, specifically the shopping side of marriage, and what could be gayer, considering how gays have basically taken over marriage these days? It only makes sense that Bravo would devote an entire reality-TV series to gay men and fag hags and wedding dresses. Amirite?
Rios does worry, however, that “Say Yes to the Dress” shields viewers from the “very dark side” that is “not a good thing for people ultimately in their lives and … a destructive force.” Surprisingly, she is not talking about the ego-maniacal brides featured on the show. She’s just bitching that the show doesn’t make gay people look terrible enough.
“My concern,” she laments, “is for the raping of the innocence of our children.”
Yes, you heard that right. If children are not likely to grow up to be as bigoted as Rios, then it’s obviously because gays keep raping their innocence.
Rios says gays are “forcing” their issues “in public schools, forcing little children to be educated — they call it educated, I’d say sexually abused — by information their little ears are not ready to hear.”
Hmm … If it’s sexual abuse to tell a kid that gays aren’t uniformly disgusting and going to hell, then I wonder what Rios would consider the largely hostile school environment so many gay kids are subjected to. I suspect she would call that “fair and balanced.”
D’Anne Witkowski has been gay for pay since 2003. She’s a freelance writer and poet (believe it!). When she’s not taking on the creeps of the world, she reviews rock ’n’ roll shows in Detroit with her twin sister.