ABC/DISNEY'S HOMOPHOBIC BUSINESS MOVE

From AMERICAblog courtesy of Eschaton:

The NYT article below provides a lot of evidence that the religious right got "Welcome to the Neighborhood," a reality TV show, killed before it even aired a single episode because ABC/Disney thought the religious right would pull its support for the movie Narnia if the gays were shown to win the reality show (the gay couple did win).

What's worse, a bit part of the religious right's problem with the reality show is that many of the neighbors of the gay couple in the show were quite homophobic Christians and by the end of the show they ended up loving their gay neighbors. The religious right objected especially to the fact that real Christians embraced their gay neighbors.

Click here for the rest.

I guess it's been a while since the evangelical nuts were howling in outrage about "Gay Day" at Disney World. Indeed, it strikes me that their boycott of Disney, which only ended last year, may very well have been the event that ultimately led to what's described in the excerpt above. The Jesus freaks apparently have Mickey Mouse on the run.

I expect more of this BS in the future. One thing that makes media companies quake in their boots is organized flak like the Baptist boycott, and it seems like the fundamentalist flak machine is running full speed ahead. Consequently, look to see the increasing posivitive portrayals of gays and lesbians in the media over the last few years reverse itself to some extent. From the corporate end, it's all about business. Will and Grace, for instance, may be a big money maker by itself for NBC, but if the military-industrial giant that owns the network, General Electric, decides that it stands to lose more money overall if the Christian right chooses to target the silly gay themed show, you can bet your Judy Garland record collection that they wouldn't hesitate to cancel it.

Noam Chomsky has been saying for forty years that the only way change happens in this country is when people are organized. But he's talking about the left: it's a damned shame that the right-wing religious nuts understand this concept waaay better than we do.

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