by Joseph Farah

Reprinted from Glendale News-Press

These days, just about anything goes on commercial television: condom ads, nudity, foul language, ultra-violence.

But there is at least one thing I promise you will never see on TV. It’s something so shocking, so sensitive, so taboo all network executives would agree it’s off-limits, now and forever.

Though TV honchos will gladly tell you how much they hate censorship and love artistic freedom, there are limits. Where is it that they draw the line on taste and propriety? What is the one issue too hot for TV to handle? What is the one plot line you will never see developed in a television series or movie?

You will never see a homosexual quit the lifestyle and become a heterosexual.

Why is that? Is it because it doesn’t happen in real life? Is it a lie? Is it because the networks are afraid to create programs about homosexuals? How can I be so sure that scenario will never find its way into prime-time?

The reason I am so confident in this prediction is [that] homosexual activists are by far the most powerful lobby group in Hollywood. And homosexual activists think it is absolutely vital to their cause to convince the public that homosexuality is a permanent condition, not a choice.

Though some might label these accusations the delusions of a homophobic, this news won’t come as a revelation to anyone in the TV industry. It has been well-documented in a series of articles in T.V Guide and in the scholarly Journal of Communication.

Spokespersons for all three networks reported that gays were the most effective and well-organized of the special interest groups who lobby the television industry, reported Kathryn Montgomery, a former communications professor at Cal State L.A., in the Journal of Communication study.

In the TV Guide report, a group of TV executives unanimously agree it would be impossible to produce a show in which a homosexual decides to seek psychiatric treatment to alter his behavior. Impossible. Out of the question. End of discussion.

But isn’t this censorship? How can all these open-minded liberals who make up our television programming establishment condone such artistic prohibitions?

Of course it is censorship. But the homosexual activists and their Hollywood marionettes would contend that the scenario is just not factual, it just never happens. Homosexuals don’t leave the lifestyle, they contend.

But the reality is that they do.

“I’ve never thought about it in this light before, but it definitely is a form of censorship,” says Andy Comiskey, director of Desert Stream, a Southern California-based support group for people who have left the homosexual lifestyle.“It’s a false picture. It’s extremely biased.”

Comiskey is also president of Exodus International, a coalition of 60 ex-gay groups from all over the world. As such, he’s personally aware of hundreds of people who have chosen to leave homosexuality and lead heterosexual lives.

But you would never know such people exist by watching network television – entertainment or news.

Just in the last three seasons, the networks have aired at least five entertainment programs about homosexuality that would lead viewers to believe the lifestyle is not only a healthy alternative, but for keeps.

The most controversial example was the CBS school break special last spring, “What If I’m Gay?” The show portrayed the teen-age captain of a high school soccer team who comes out of the closet after advice from his school counselor. The message for the kids: It’s just an alternate lifestyle, and you can lead a happy and fulfilled life as a homosexual.

Other examples of recent pro-homosexual propaganda by the networks include:

• In 1986, a CBS movie called “Welcome Home, Bobby” about a 16-year-old who wrestles with his sexual identity before “coming out.”

• In l985, an NBC movie called “An Early Frost” about a young man forced to tell his parents about his homosexuality when he learns he has AIDS.

• In 1985, ABC movie called “Consenting Adult” about how another young man tells his family he’s gay.

• In l985, the ABC series “Hotel” included an episode in which a dying mother decides her daughter should live with homosexual lovers when she’s gone.

But the most recent example of pro-homosexual propaganda on network television was the NBC News children’s program “Main Street,” which favorably profiled two gay teen-agers.

Here’s how host Maria Shriver set up the program: “Surveys estimate that about 10 percent of all teen-agers are homosexuals. Scientists don’t know why. Some think it’s a combination of hormonal changes and experiences in early childhood. One thing they are sure of, however: Homosexuality is not something homosexuals choose. It’s just something they are or become. And they face a struggle because of it, often living in a harsh world of prejudice, sometimes even violence.”

“We’ve monitored television as carefully as any group in the last few years,” says Rev. Donald Wildmon whose [American Family Association] has pressured sponsors to hold networks accountable for their programming. “With the possible exception of a “60 Minutes” report a few years ago, there has not been a single program on television that is in any way unflattering toward the homosexual lifestyle.”

Wildmon, too, calls this blatant censorship. He sees a double standard. The networks use their commitment to artistic freedom as an excuse to refuse his demands for less sex and violence and more family-oriented programming, while knuckling under to the suggestions of the Gay Media Task Force.

Wildmon, a Methodist minister from Tupelo, Mississippi, points to dozens of examples of negative sterotyping of religious figures and values on television. And, despite a vast organizational effort, he feels helpless in influencing Hollywood.

Wildmon has been accused of trying to censor what we see on television. But, in reality, Wildmon has been fighting a losing battle. The real censors are the people winning the war to control what we watch on TV.