Glee's 90-minute Born This
Way episode is coming under attack from social conservatives who
say the show celebrates being gay.
On Tuesday's Lady Gaga-inspired
episode, gay student Kurt Hummel, played by Chris Colfer, returns to
McKinley High after closeted football player Dave Karofsky, played by
Max Adler, is blackmailed by Santana, played by Naya Rivera, to stop
bullying Kurt. Santana confesses to Dave that they play on the same
team. An emotional Kurt agrees to leave the Dalton Academy Warblers
– and his new-found boyfriend Blaine Anderson, played by Darren
Criss – after Dave caves in to Kurt's demand for him to organize a
chapter of PFLAG.
Blaine sends off Kurt with an emotional
rendition of Somewhere Only We Know. And
wearing a t-shirt that says “LIKES BOYS,” Kurt steals the show's
final and pivotal Born This Way
number.
“This
is [creator] Ryan Murphy's latest depraved initiative to promote his
gay agenda,” Dan Gainor, vice president of conservative media
watchdog Media Research Center, bristled
to ABC News.
“This is clearly
Ryan Murphy's vision of what growing up should be. It's a high
school most parents would not want to send their kids to.”
Bryan Fischer of
the Christian conservative American Family Association (AFA) called
the show “product placement” in an appearance on Houston's Fox
affiliate.
“[A]dvertisers
purchase time on television programs because they know that what
people see on television influences their behavior and influences
their choices,” Fischer said. “We should not glamorize it [gay
relationships] anymore than we would glamorize intravenous drug use.”
(The video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)