Sex on TV

Though not much of a TV watcher myself, I could not escape the hype surrounding the infamous “coming out” episode of the ABC sitcom “Ellen.”

Happily, the program came and went, and the republic still stands, more or less, but both enthusiasts and detractors of that episode agreed that it was a landmark for American popular culture. As an evangelical friend said at the time, “When Oprah Winfrey turns up on a program like this to signal to Middle America that lesbianism is okay, you know some pretty important fences are coming down.”

The day after the “Ellen” episode aired back in May, I fired off an ill-tempered email to several Christian friends. I drew an immediate, well-deserved rebuke. The writer is a Catholic convert, homosexually oriented, but living a chaste life in obedience to Church teaching. With his permission, I am passing on his letter:

I don’t cotton to your “culture war” rhetoric. I’m disgusted with all the hype surrounding this “Ellen” episode—as much with the conservative protest as I am with the media overkill. I’m not happy with the normalization of homosexuality on prime-time television, and I wish this episode had never been aired.

But the reaction from moral conservatives is what disturbs me most. Does the coming out of a normal-looking person on television justify all this moral outrage? Why don’t we see this kind of outrage against the weekly sexual escapades on “Friends”? Where is the uproar about the illicit sexuality on soap operas? Why isn’t everyone screaming bloody murder about the real-life tragedy of divorce in this country? Our divorce culture has done a lot more damage to kids than “Ellen” would if next week’s episode showed a lesbian orgy!

The heterosexual distortions around us have been undermining traditional family values for decades. But for some reason, it’s a gay sitcom character that’s going to push us over the brink. Maybe it’s too hard to fight a culture war when you can’t construct it as a battle between us and them.

I acknowledge that there are many sincere people boycotting advertisers and writing letters to TV studios in an effort to resist immorality on television. I am also aware that there is a distinction between illicit heterosexual acts, which are sinful but at least have some correspondence to the natural order, versus homosexual acts, which are against nature. So there does seem to be a line being crossed. This “Ellen” episode will likely do further harm to the moral sense of those who form their morals from prime-time sitcoms. It does push the door open wider for counter-Christian sensibilities to be portrayed and propagated.

It just seems like that door has been open for a long time—and many Christians have become indifferent to, if not accepting of, the tremendous amount of heterosexual brokenness in the media, in the culture, and even in Christian families. It’s right to resist a pro-lesbian sitcom, but when the conservative reaction is so out of proportion compared to the typical response to more imminent dangers, how can charges of hypocrisy and gay-bashing (e.g., “Ellen DeGenerate”) be refuted?

Author

  • Rod Dreher

    Rod Dreher (born 1967) is an American writer and editor. He was a conservative editorial writer and a columnist for The Dallas Morning News, but departed that newspaper in late 2009 to affiliate with the John Templeton Foundation. He has also contributed in the past to The American Conservative and National Review. He wrote a blog previously called "Crunchy Con" at beliefnet.com, then simply called "Rod Dreher" with an emphasis on cultural rather than political topics.

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