Special to WorldTribune.com
By Loredana Vuoto
Hollywood has mastered Joseph Goebbels’ famous propaganda strategy, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” The lie: same-sex couples are ‘the new normal’ and can provide a loving family for children.
This was recently depicted at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards. Thirty-four couples, including same-sex couples, were married onstage by Queen Latifah who was legally deputized by Los Angeles County to perform the ceremonies.
The couples said, “I do,” on a church-like backdrop as hip-hop duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis sang their hit, “Same Love,” which embraces same-sex love. Pop star Madonna later chimed in with her famous tune, “Open Your Heart.” The camera panned to the celebrity-filled audience cheering the ceremony. Some even wiped away tears.
The prime time message seen and heard around the nation was clear: same-sex couples are equal to heterosexual couples and their love should be rejoiced and accepted by all. The underlying message was even clearer: If you don’t embrace same-sex love, you are a heartless bigot trying to stop people from finding love and living life to the fullest. Vilification in point: Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson who dared to say otherwise and was temporarily suspended by A&E.
For the past few decades, elites in movies and television have worked hard to propagate this message. Long gone are the days when beloved talk show host Ellen DeGeneres was ostracized for coming out on her sitcom by the same name in 1997. A year later, her show was cancelled due to poor ratings.
But Hollywood and entertainment mavens persevered. Many activists understood that culture is upstream from politics. Culture alone has more power to change hearts and minds than dry political speeches that only a few hear. Cultural change always precedes political change. Just ask Bono, the lead singer of the rock band U2. His passion and vocal support for AIDS patients in Africa ignited global awareness and amassed billions of dollars. A pop icon, not a Washington politician, catapulted a movement with public policy change.
Cultural cues have the power to change social behavior.
In 1988, Jay Winsten, a public health professor at Harvard, launched a campaign to create a new American social norm of “designated driver,” prevalent in Scandinavian countries. He worked with Hollywood producers and writers from more than 160 prime time television programs to insert at least five seconds of “designated driver” moments in plots. “Cheers,” “L.A. Law,” “The Cosby Show,” and “Who’s the Boss,” were but a few of the hit shows featuring this new concept. Within three years, 90 percent of Americans polled were familiar with the previously unbeknownst “designated driver.” Hollywood and television producers took note.
So instead of quietly putting the issue of same-sex couples on the back burner, the American Motion Picture and television industry rolled up its sleeves and began producing more and more sitcoms, movies and music celebrating the lie of same-sex relationships. There were a few flops, some near-misses and a few hits like “Will & Grace,” and “Brokeback Mountain.” Those hits are no longer few and far between. They are now a staple of primetime television and movies. “Modern Family” and “Glee” are television fan favorites, sweeping awards shows, as movies like “The Kids Are All Right.”
The most recent homosexual flick, “Dallas Buyer’s Club,” based on the true-life story of Ron Woodroof, an AIDS patient who smuggled unapproved pharmaceutical drugs into Texas to combat his disease, is currently nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture, best actor and best supporting actor. Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto have already won Golden Globes and Screen Actor’s Guild awards for best actor and best supporting actor, respectively.
The Disney Channel has also embraced same-sex unions. The same night the Grammys aired, it introduced its first same-sex couple on “Good Luck Charlie.” Last summer, the network cavalierly announced that a story line featuring two lesbian mothers “was developed under the consultancy of child development experts and community advisers” and was “relevant to kids and families around the world and to reflect themes of diversity and inclusiveness.”
The entertainment industry relentlessly propagates the myth that same-sex unions are natural. During the Grammy’s wedding ceremony, Mackelmore sings, “The right-wing conservatives think it’s a decision/And you can be cured with some treatment and religion/Man-made rewiring of a predisposition.” But even the American Psychiatric Association has said that no scientific evidence supports that people are born “gay” or that homosexuality is innate.
Macklemore’s rap also denigrates America’s Judeo-Christian heritage: “Playing God, aw nah here we go/America the brave still fears what we don’t know/And God loves all his children, is somehow forgotten/But we paraphrase a book written 3500 years ago.” However, Mackelmore’s caricature of Christians misconstrues the deep theological underpinnings of their beliefs.
Natural law affirms the fruitful union of one man and one woman—a procreative gift biologically impossible for same-sex couples. Despite celebrity hype, studies have consistently shown that children do best when raised by a mother and father. According to The New Family Structures Study conducted by Dr. Mark Regnerus, University of Texas-Austin sociologist, young adults whose mothers had a same-sex relationship were far more likely to be sexually abused, on welfare or unemployed.
Young adults whose fathers had a same-sex relationship were also more likely to have contemplated suicide, have a sexually transmitted disease, or were forced to have sex against their will. In sum, gender roles are not interchangeable and they do affect the health and well-being of children.
But the truth does not stop the current trajectory. There are now 17 states and the District of Columbia that allow same-sex marriage, up nine from last year. Hollywood and television continue to churn out more homosexual programming, helping to make this the law of the land and the cultural norm.
In order to win the war on children and marriage, traditionalists must smash the entertainment industry’s stranglehold on our culture. That is the only way to stop the Hollywood propaganda machine bent on destroying God, family, and the well-being of our children.
Loredana Vuoto is a former speechwriter for Sen. Rick Santorum. She was assistant national editor and an editorial writer at The Washington Times.
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