The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has asked a Houston Fox affiliate for a formal apology after it aired a “Is TV Too Gay?” segment following last week’s 90-minute Lady Gaga–themed episode.
The segment zeroed in on the pretty gay Glee, asking whether it “delve[s] too much into homosexual relationships.” And Fox host Damali Keith compared the gay characters on Glee to “product placement” by soda companies in movies, where “everyone in the theater is thirsty for that particular brand.” Bryan Fletcher from the American Family Association also spoke on the segment, calling Glee pro-gay “propaganda.” Local affiliate KRIV-26 has yet to issue an apology.
Forget about an apology. It is a mistake for GLAAD to try and make political capital out of this. The progay speaker got his point across and rebutted all the rubbish spoken by the so-called American Family Association who looked increasingly irrational as the interview wore on. It was with public conversations like this that Harvey Milk prevailed against Anita Bryant. By trying to extinguish public debate, GLAAD may inadvertently be damaging its own cause of public education. In Australia, the bizarre pronouncements by Rev Fred NIle against the Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras helped the parade to become the biggest LGBT public event in the Southern Hemisphere, attracting a street crowd in excess of 1 million per year. Instead of attacking them, let’s give FOX credit for actually screening Glee in the first place. Whenever the likes of Phelps and his Westboro nutters get airspace, they just look more and more ridiculous. The best way to expose their vitriolic malice and ignorance is, well, to expose it.
An elegant comment, to which I can only respond “here, here!”