The Beatles are going to corrupt the youth, Judas Priest songs are causing people to commit suicide, Grand theft Auto makes your kids want to shoot slower, less well armed, kids.
The Beatles are going to corrupt the youth, Judas Priest songs are causing people to commit suicide, Grand theft Auto makes your kids want to shoot slower, less well armed, kids. There is nothing the fundamentalist Christian right of America enjoy more than a good moral panic. Whether it’s burning copies of Harry Potter or claiming that Call of Duty makes people want to gun down airports full of unarmed civilians.
More often than not these actions are nothing more than small town pastors attempting to make a bit of a name for themselves. The best examples are the Florida pastor Terry Jones, who attempted to make a stand against perceived Muslim intolerance by setting fire to the Qu’ran, and the ever more disgusting behaviour of the Westboro Baptist Church.
The latest individual to throw his hat into the ring is Kevin Swanson of Colorado’s Reformation Church.
Swanson alleges that the animated Disney film Frozen is a masterpiece of gay propaganda and that Disney is “one of the most pro-homosexual organisations in the country.”
It’s hard to see what Walt Disney would have made of those allegations given he had some pretty dubious views about minority groups.
Embarrassing behaviour
I can’t claim to have seen or to be interested in seeing Frozen, though the possible insertion of “gay propaganda” is nothing to do with this decision. I do however find it very sad that an individual, with a position of trust within his own community no less, feels the need to declare such bizarre and, I’ll be straight to the point, backwards views in the 21st century.
I don’t want to offend anyone’s beliefs, but when you’re going around making statements like this: “I wonder if people are thinking: ‘You know I think this cute little movie is going to indoctrinate my 5-year-old to be a lesbian or treat homosexuality or bestiality in a light sort of way.’”
Then you are just embarrassing yourself. Comparing homosexuality to bestiality, another favourite practice among right wing fundamentalist loud mouths, does little to endear me to your cause either.
Swanson claims that he is not a “tinfoil hat conspiratorialist” (whatever that is) but also believes that gays are one day going to be rounding up Christians to burn at the stake.
It’s hard to see a scenario where we’d end up living in that sort of anarchic world where we were back to burning each other. If we were it’s hard to see Swanson himself being reluctant to break out the matches and firewood. He may not have a tin foil hat, but he is almost certainly in the process of making one.
Why say that?
As one last act of insanity Swanson added that if he wanted to do something evil to the children of America he would have bought Disney in 1984. This is a seemingly arbitrary year, especially given Disney didn’t release any films in 1984.
They did release Return to Oz in 1985 though – so maybe that was the great evil he meant?
Joking outside, it is terrible that people still think it is acceptable to make the bigoted and baffling comments that Swanson et al make. I sometimes wonder what kind of person wakes up and decides to announce to the world that a harmless children’s film is gay propaganda. It is the sort of thing you expect from a tin-pot dictator or a particularly drunk Russian politician, not from 21st century America.
The best solution to people like Swanson and his cohorts is simply to ignore them. If he wants to stand on the roof of his church shouting that Disney films are gay propaganda then let him do it to his hearts content and just ignore him.
What do you think? Have your say in the comments section below.
