Conservatives in America have two strategies they can employ to push back against LGBT+ messaging aimed at children. Both are doomed to failure.
The first strategy is to keep doing what we’ve been doing: denounce queer messaging aimed at kids as “grooming” or (in more polite company) “indoctrination.” The other is to go full trad.
The problem with the first strategy is that it sets up a clear double standard. Take, for example, Disney’s recent “Buzz Lightyear” film, which drew boycotts for featuring a lesbian kiss.
Progressives, understandably, wanted to know what all the outrage was about. The kiss was brief and chaste. Bo Peep’s dalliance with Woody in the “Toy Story” films is far more sexually suggestive. If the kids watching two space rangers smooch were being “groomed,” then so were their great-grandparents who watched the prince kiss Snow White.
This is the lesbian kiss in ‘Lightyear’ that has some people up in arms. Here’s what I have to say about it : https://t.co/bg2paf5izu @getcallin pic.twitter.com/FNkuyt1ukG
— Arielle Scarcella (@ArielleScarcell) June 24, 2022
It’s a good rebuttal. Nobody could argue with a straight face that children should never be exposed to romantic pairings of any kind.
As for “indoctrination,” Disney execs have discussed their “not-so-secret gay agenda” to increase LGBT+ representation. But what’s wrong with that? Openly gay people exist in our society. In any debate over whether they should appear in kids’ entertainment, the burden of proof naturally falls on the party arguing for exclusion.
And what about the claim that including gay or trans characters might confuse or influence young audience members? It’s easy to predict the response to that:
“What’s confusing about seeing a same-sex couple? ‘Daddy, why did the little boy have two mommies?’ ‘Well, son, some families have two mommies, and they’re just as valid as families with a mommy and a daddy.’ See? Simple. Are you worried your son will discover he’s gay or trans or something? Well, maybe he will. So what?”
The problem with these objections is that they don’t go deep enough. If you accept your opponents’ presuppositions — that sex has more to do with self-expression than procreation, that consent is the sole determinant of sexual morality, that personal fulfillment is the purpose of human life — you’ve already lost. (RELATED: Disney Bows To Middle East Censors Over Same-Sex Kiss, Despite Picking Fight With DeSantis Over Florida Law)
Which brings us to the second strategy. The easiest response would be to say, “I have a double standard because heterosexual relationships are good while homosexuality and transgenderism are deviant and wrong.”
That won’t get you very far.
Outright opposition to homosexuality is a losing strategy. A June 2022 poll found that 71 percent of Americans now support gay marriage. A few months later, 12 Republican senators voted to enshrine it in federal law. Our culture increasingly views the question of same-sex relations not as a debate over objective morality, but as a group of zealots attempting to impose their religion (or, rather, their bigoted interpretation of that religion) on everyone else.
71% of Americans support Gay Marriage pic.twitter.com/JYlOEUN6jr
— The Rabbit Hole (@TheRabbitHole84) December 8, 2022
The second strategy is far less winsome than the first, but it has the advantage of exposing the true nature and scope of the argument. To challenge the assumptions that led to gay Pixar movies is to reach back centuries and grapple with the very roots of modernity. Such an effort is probably futile, but it offers a firm place to stand and aims at a true and lasting victory. The first strategy might be more palatable. It might even be more effective, at least in the short term. Inevitably, though, it will be forced to give ground, making concession after concession in an eternal retreat.
If you have a problem with Gonzo the Muppet being nonbinary, then you’re left with two bad options: an unpopular argument and an incoherent one. Neither has much chance of success.
Grayson Quay is an editor at the Daily Caller.