American Idol's Gay "Problem"

Ugh, this annoys me.

This article discussing the “Gay Problem” at American Idol; specifically saying:

“… it's complicated. On the one hand, the show is supposed to be a family-friendly event”

Now, I know I trend to the left of um… most people… when dealing with things like this, but help me out: being gay isn’t family friendly? C’mon! Call me crazy, but if we keep treating “gay” as “wrong”, won’t kids grow up thinking it is? Isn’t this kind of a self fulfilling prophesy?

Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a whole generation of kids grow up to think there is nothing abnormal or wrong about being gay? That it’s just one of the many differences that exist between one person to the next?

I’m about to become a stepmom, so these kinds of things swirl around my mind a lot. When my step daughter was in DC last, we had dinner with a good friend of mine. Throughout the course of the dinner, my friend was telling me about the date he went on and how he was excited about this new guy he was seeing. Normal chatty friend conversation. It didn’t occur to me until later that the idea of two men dating might seem weird to my stepdaughter, and maybe I overstepped a boundary or two by not censoring the conversation. But in my next breath, I thought “Eh, whatever. I don’t want to give the impression that there’s something wrong about my friend’s dating life, because I don’t think there is, and I don’t want [stepdaughter] to think there is, either.”

Granted, she’s not my child and it’s not for me to make these decisions, so in a sense I did overstep a boundary line if her parents feel differently. But I really do believe that kids learn by watching, and the reactions we have to the world around us will influence what they think is normal. What a shame American Idol sees fit to prepetuate a culture of homophobia to the next generation.