Posted on 07/01/2002 10:08:35 PM PDT by I_Love_My_Husband
Give family issues equal time By Marianne M. Jennings
Linda Ellerbee, Nickelodeon's "journalist," had a Nick-at-Nite show called "My Family Is Different." Ellerbee, GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) supporter, taught children "diversity, tolerance and respect" for same-sex parents and their children.
Ellerbee had an in-studio focus group. There were three children of gay and lesbian couples, a gay NYC fireman with three adopted children, and a gay principal from Minnesota who has no children but who assured us that parents love him.
Ellerbee posed questions loaded with negative pregnants, as it were, to her stacked group: "Do you think it is morally wrong to be a homosexual?" "Do you think we need laws to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination?" "Many schools are bringing issues about homosexuality and diversity into the classrooms — do you think these kinds of things should be taught in school?"
Everyone bemoaned the name-calling that children of gay and lesbian parents endure. Kids are cruel, but they are generically so, egalitarian in their ruthlessness. They are as diabolical over bananas in the lunch pail. Real kids turn only to Fruit Roll-Ups for fiber. My own children have endured merciless ribbing for their mother's musings and their own bad teeth. I got them braces and told them to say Molly Ivins is their mother.
Ellerbee's program was an affront to journalism, to wit, "Many kids these days are growing up in families that are non-traditional (have two moms or two dads)." She failed to disclose that "many" means .00000003 of the U.S. population, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics' highest estimate of children with same-sex parents. The film snippets of children with lesbian parents looked like Sponge Bob mixing it up with Lamb Chop. Mothers (2) and teen daughter romping about and cuddling. If my husband and I did the same with our teen daughters, we'd hear, "This is so gross."
Propaganda should not be touted as a news show. Ellerbee forced dialogue and edited clips to the singular conclusion that same-sex parents are common and benign.
To suggest that parents control access to these shows is naive and hypocritical. Ellerbee and her ilk have removed the very mention of religion in schools because of their paranoia that children would begin thumping Bibles and living moral lives.
Liberals lobbied in the 1970s to have cereal and sugar products ads curbed during Saturday morning 'toons because their children were going cuckoo coo-coo with Cocoa Puffs. Ritalin not yet available, they sought a bureaucratic cure.
We, however, are asked to believe that Ellerbee's stealth indoctrination on kid TV and school discussions will not influence children. If the faith of our forefathers is banned for fear of conversion, then gay adoption discussions must fall to the same protest.
I propose that Ellerbee do as many shows on same-sex parents as she wants so long as Nick gives equal time and prominence to other family tolerance issues.
"My family is different; we don't believe in abortion." Nick could show clips of college campus newspapers refusing to accept pro-life ads and then air an interview with Michelle Diaz, the California nurse fired for refusing to dispense "morning-after" pills.
The program could cover the litigation against the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform for its planes that fly over beaches this summer carrying banners that show a 10-week aborted fetus. Barbara Daw, a beach mother, objected to the fly-overs, "It took away my right to explain abortion to my children when they are ready." Well said, Mrs. Daw. Now curb Ellerbee and the schools on same-sex education of my cherubs.
Another show theme: "My family is different; we go to church."
Linda, I'm with you, babe. Focus group, onward! Just give all family tolerance issues equal time, complete with panels loaded in our favor.
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Marianne M. Jennings is a professor of legal and ethical studies at Arizona State University. Her e-mail address is mmjdiary@aol.com
Bernie Goldberg's talking about.
What's with Nikelodean these days? Homosexual Discussions, movies that appear anti-capitalist, etc. Something's wrong.There's "something wrong" with our whole culture/society, brother.
I think they forgot the rest of the quote: "And we hate God because he says in his word that what we do is sin. Yes, and we hate anyone who doesn't worship our embrace of sin as the prefered 'lifestyle' determined soley by genetics... a mistake made by God".
The church your "different" family goes to is not a Jewish, Christian or Musilm church. What "church" is it and who gets worshiped???
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