Star Wars Game Might Turn Kids Gay…Says Breitbart’s Blog

Cynthia Yockey wrote an Op-Ed for this month’s issue of the Advocate, titled: “Equality Will Come From the Right: Why Andrew Breitbart is a better friend to gays than is the Obama administration.”

Andrew Breitbart

The piece outlines why the writer believes the Republican Party will be responsible for bringing about LGBT equality in the United States. The writer profiles an organization known as GOProud, a group whose mission is to let the world know that not all gays are progressive. GOProud was invited last year to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and was met with many other right wing groups boycotting the conference due to their participation. They’ve since been uninvited for next year’s event. Andrew Breitbart has decided he will boycott CPAC should GOProud not be allowed to participate.

Breitbart has since been named to the board of GOProud. Media Matters has outlined the dozens of moments in anti-gay rhetoric which Breitbart has been responsible for. And today, from Breitbart’s website, “Big Hollywood,” comes another extraordinarily anti-gay article. This one is akin to Keith Ablow’s advice to parents that they shouldn’t let their kids watch Chaz Bono on Dancing With the Stars because it might make kids turn transgender.

John Nolte of Breitbart’s Big Hollywood asks “Will ‘Star Wars’ Online Video Game Ask Your Child to Engage In Same-Sex Relationships.” The opening line of the post says:

“Apparently, after selling somewhere around 500,000 copies to unsuspecting families everywhere, the creators of the video game “Star Wars: The Old Republic” have decided to add same-sex romances to the online feature.

Say goodbye to your child’s innocence.”

The rest of Nolte’s rant describes the announcement that the game producing companies involved (BioWare, Electronic Arts, and George Lucas’s LucasArts) would be including SGRA’s (Same-Gender Relationship Arcs) in the online version of the game. He even goes so far as to call the company’s move to make the game inclusive “pure bait and switch.”

Nolte includes a letter from a Big Hollywood reader which states that “Some parents are concerned that this homosexual content will attract pedophiles.” This, despite the fact that pedophiles are disproportionately heterosexual. While hundreds of religious leaders have inaccurately and successfully spread the malicious lie that there is a link between homosexuality and pedophilia, the scientists (you know, the one who base their beliefs on fact and not fantasy) argue the opposite based on actual statistics.

Despite Andrew Breitbart’s apparent support of the conservative gay group GOProud, it seems to me that he has no problem trafficking in stereotypes, distortions and horrific lies about gay people. While I am all for doing our best to educate all people on our plight for equality, stating that Andrew Breitbart is going to be responsible for bringing equality to LGBT Americans seems a bit far-fetched.

Compromising on Equality

As most of us here on the East Coast are snowed in, what better to do with this new-found free time than a little edugaytion?

From On Top Magazine today, we find a brief rundown of the candidates for the new Republican National Committee Chairperson. The current chair (who is also running for re-election), Michael Steele opposes gay marriage, claiming it would be “bad for small businesses.” This is somehow related to the fact that businesses would be required to provide insurance for same-sex spouses like they already do for the other 90% of the population. So his argument is that we should not have the same rights because small businesses should still be allowed to discriminate.

Recently, the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage interviewed the leading candidates for RNC Chair and unsurprisingly, they are all against equality. NOM’s chair, the outspoken Maggie Gallagher interviewed Wisconsin GOP Chairman Reince Priebus, Save American Jobs Project Chairman Saul Anuzis, former RNC political director Gentry Collins and former Missouri Republican Chairwoman Ann Wagner.

As On Top mentions, Collins said gay marriage “devalues the relationship that is shared by my wife and I and a number of committed married couples.”

“Marriage is an institution that has been around for 3,000 years. It’s part of our faith. It’s part of out culture,” Anuzis said. “It’s important to have a mother and a father … People care that you’re a family person.”

Opposition to gay marriage is a “pillar” of the Republican platform, Wagner said in her interview.

“I think that’s where the American people are. They believe in traditional marriage. They want to lift that up. … It’s important that we hold true to those tenants and values that I think are a pillar of our Republican party and our platform.”

Priebus said marriage was given to us by God and needs to be protected from “activist judges.”

“I believe marriage is a gift from God and the sanctity of marriage ought to be protected … and I don’t believe the comedy clause in the constitution allows for activist judges to redefine what marriage is,” he said, referring to the constitution’s Full Faith and Credit clause.

GOProud, an organization for gay Republicans, jumped in and is willing to throw their support behind any candidate who is not Michael Steele. Said GOProud’s Chris Barron “We need an RNC Chair who understands that his or her role is to raise money and build party infrastructure, not to sell books, hire friends and family, and pontificate on policy.”

Barron goes on to claim some credit for the November midterm elections: “Were it not for the hard work of outside groups, who were forced to step in to fill the void left by an ineffective RNC, success at the ballot box in November would never have occurred.”

What a tremendous conflict it must be to be gay and have to argue in favor of someone who opposes equality so vehemently. Change is occurring of course, and some within the Republican party – and groups like GOProud are partly responsible for that – let’s hope they can keep changing minds from the inside without having to compromise more of their own personal freedoms.