Yay! First Post!

America (the country not necessarily the continent) is a mixed bag of -isms. White is right. Men are on top. And our ideals tend to the straight and narrow. Entire cultures evolve through difference and the need to shelter us from each other.

This goes beyond the normal, vague, grand, lawsuit inviting concepts of racism and sexism. We have musickism: judging people by the music they enjoy and understand. Movieism: calling people out on their film tastes. Job-ism, car-ism, hobby-ism, cell phone-ism...the list surely goes on. I can't think of one aspect of a person I wouldn't judge.

The issue isn't that we do something as natural and automatic as judge. The problem is bringing fire to the table and deciding that every difference of opinion is a life or death ordeal. Opinions can be deadly, and it's been through generations of effort that our society has broken the lethal aspects of much of our bigotry.

The process is ongoing and we're certainly not done elevating our thinking yet. The turn of this last century has seen a new push for gay rights and everyone else who falls into the exceedingly broad category of sexual deviance [deviance here taking on its statistical, sociological, and hopefully neutral, meaning of "not the norm."]. There have been a few pockets of resistance, like Oregon, and a few pockets of la résistance, like Massachusetts.

A new front has opened up that gay rights advocates and detractors may not know about. Over the last twenty years, video games have blossomed into a fully realized industry capable of influencing society on moral issues normally reserved for traditional media. Drugs, violence and good old fashioned sex mostly steal the spotlight for their alleged corrupting effect on youth [See GTA: Vice City GTA: San Andreas GTA: 4]. I see a collision course in the near future, however, of gay rights and video games. Already games are exploring homosexual themes and it's only a matter of time before a highly conservative individual gains a TV spot to complain about the newest wave of degenerate media.

Under the direction of Will Wright for example, the Sims [and Sims 2] franchise views homosexuality as absolutely normal. In this life-simulator, adult Sims are allowed romantic interactions with either sex. In fact, one look at an individual Sim's data file shows zero preference for either sex. It's technically asexual, but it usually ends up expressed as bisexual since the game rules dictate that Sims learn their preference through experience.

From developer Bioware, two prominent franchises contain subplots that explore homosexuality between the protagonist and a supporting character. Knights of the Old Republic, often KOTOR, contains such a story arc, but it's Mass Effect that executes it's subplot with a degree of professionalism good enough for film. Surprisingly, or maybe not, Mass Effect was the center of attention at the beginning of this year over it's "full digital nudity and sex." Fox "News" severely misrepresented the game and generated a storm of controversy. I highly recommend the original airing from Fox and the rebuttal from now renowned TV host Adam Sessler from G4TV.

In the original Fable from Lionhead, homosexuality was just another quirky piece of RPG in Peter Molyneux's Action-Adventure game. Depending on who you were currently married to, the game declared you homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual on your stats screen. When the original was released, Peter received a lot of negative backlash from the gaming community when the features he touted were cut from the final game. In the upcoming sequel, Fable 2, Peter has decided to play tight and honest with the information that goes public and at this point the gaming community is certain that the Player Character (PC) can either be a man or woman, gay or straight, and can raise a family regardless of sex or orientation. The actual mechanics of raising a family as a gay character, speculation abounds, in Fable 2 haven't been fully revealed as far as I know.

It's an election year, and the voting season, September through November as a rough guide, also happens to be one of the hottest seasons for video game releases. I can see Iraq, the Economy, and other Big Politics overshadowing this fall, but I'm hoping for at least one big story linking video games with the "gay agenda." The more exposure the entire GLBT [please excuse any letters I may have forgotten] movement gets the better we can see our own illogical and inexcusable behavior.

Let's face it, this isn't some neo-hippie, peace and love bullshit I'm trying to push. This is a slap in the face to all the ignorant and blinded people who hate just for the sake of hating.