Hollywood celebrities exuberantly celebrated President Obama’s recent declaration of support for gay marriage. But Hollywood did not have to come out of the closet and support homosexuality – it has long used its influence to purposely swing public opinion in favor of homosexuality.
For several decades, Hollywood has shown its overt support for homosexuality. Brokeback Mountain was nominated for Best Picture for its unabashedly sympathetic portrayal of a doomed gay relationship. Newt Gingrich’s half-sister officiated at a gay wedding on “Friends” in the 1990s. More recently, late night talk show host Conan O’Brian officiated at an actual gay wedding.
Homosexual advocacy on television first began to manifest itself in the 1970’s. In 1972, made for TV movie “That Certain Summer” featured Hal Holbrook and Martin Sheen as a gay couple. In 1973, the reality show “An American Family” featured son Lance Loud's coming out. Billy Crystal played a gay character on the ABC sitcom “Soap” in 1977. Despite the fact that the show consistently lost money, ABC put on “Soap” for 4 seasons.
This push towards normalizing homosexuality reached full torque in later decades, coming to a head during the late 1990s. NBC sitcom “Friends” aired an episode with a lesbian wedding in 1996; the episode featured Newt Gingrich’s sister as the official celebrating the wedding. “Friends” producer Marta Kauffman told Ben Shapiro, for his book Primetime Propaganda that, “When we cast Candice Gringrich as the minister of that wedding, [was there] a bit of ‘f*** you’ in it to the right wing directly? Yeah.”
“Ellen,” featuring lesbian Ellen DeGeneres, created a stir when she “came out” on air. “Will and Grace” featured a gay man and a straight woman rooming together.
Today, the airwaves are awash in pro-homosexual content – GLAAD tracks how often networks air homosexual characters on their shows. Fox’s musical comedy “Glee” is on the front lines of homosexual advocacy, showing gay sex and slamming anti-gay bullying. Other popular shows prominently featuring homosexuals include “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Modern Family.” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” host Conan O’Brian even officiated at a gay wedding in 2011.
It is no wonder that Ben Shapiro declares in “Primetime Propaganda” that television is the “culture’s most ardent advocate for gay marriage.”
Filmmakers have also not been shy about their support for gay marriage. The 2005 film “Brokeback Mountain”, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, featured two cowboys in a gay relationship. The 2008 film “Milk” told the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected into public office in California. “The Perfect Family,” which mocks a “devout Catholic” as a bigot for opposing homosexuality, is Hollywood’s most recent latest pro-homosexual effort.
Hollywood actors and directors have not been shy about their goal to normalize homosexuality. Ryan Murphy, the creator of "Glee," declared “Hopefully I have made it possible for somebody on broadcast television to do a rear-entry scene in three years.” Shapiro quotes then-ABC executive Marcy Carsey, who helped produce the “Soap”: “I mentioned that Soap was one of the favorite shows I ever put on the air … it dealt with homosexuality when nobody was, it dealt with all sorts of stuff that you just couldn’t do with television but we did, and I thought that was a great thing to do.”
Politicians and journalists who favor homosexuality have also noticed the impact of the entertainment industry on influencing societal attitudes towards homosexuality. In a recent interview in which he came out for homosexual marriage, Vice President Joe Biden declared: “when things really begin to change, is when the social culture changes. I think ‘Will and Grace’ probably did more to educate the American public [about homosexuality] than almost anything anybody’s ever done so far.” NBC “Today” anchor Ann Curry agreed with Biden, declaring: "... there weren't a lot of gay role models on television ... Now, there – this is, we're in the wake of 'Will and Grace,' you know, we've seen 'Glee' on television ..."
Hollywood has fervently pushed for the normalization of homosexuality in America for decades – and this trend has only intensified.
Correction: The original description of "An American Family" was incorrect. Newsbusters regrets the error.
