GOP Senators Want TV Ratings to Include Warnings About LGTBQ Characters

Apparently, "Don't say gay" isn't enough—some Republican senators want "Don't see gay," too.

Five GOP senators sent a letter to the head of the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board asking that the rating system add new warnings so parents can keep their kids from watching shows with LGBTQ characters.

The letter was crafted by Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall and signed by Indiana’s Mike Braun, Montana’s Steve Daines, North Dakota’s Kevin Cramer, and Utah’s Mike Lee.

The senators want the TV regulator to put up a warning for shows that feature what in their eyes is “disturbing content” of LGBTQ characters to help parents keep their children from being exposed to gay, lesbian, or trans characters.

“In recent years, concerning topics of a sexual nature have become aggressively politicized and promoted in children’s programming, including irreversible and harmful experimental treatments for mental disorders like gender dysphoria,” the senators wrote. “To this end, we strongly urge you to update the TV Parental Guidelines and ensure they are up-to-date on best practices that help inform parents on this disturbing content.” 

The letter pointed out that a Disney executive recently said she supports having "many, many, many LGBTQIA+ characters in our stories,” and accused the company and other “radical activists and entertainment companies” of “sensationalizing” gender dysphoria.

“This radical and sexual sensation not only harms children but also destabilizes and damages parental rights,” they stated.

They also slam the company for opposing Florida’s new “Don’t say gay” law, which prohibits discussion of LGBTQ issues in public classrooms for younger students.

Florida Republicans have already responded to Disney’s belated opposition to the law with punitive measures that revoked Disneyworld’s self-governing status.

The senators’ demand is the latest in a homophobic and transphobic moral panic from the right that somehow kids are being “groomed” to be LGBTQ by adults who refuse to stigmatize the community.

This specific kind of absurd moral panic is nothing new. Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr. spent a whole lot of time back in the late 1990s yelling about the Teletubbies and insisting one of the main characters on that children’s show was gay. Social conservatives have for more than a half-century smeared LGBTQ people, and specifically gay men, as pedophiles out to recruit their children to the gay lifestyle—and possibly for sex.

But the letter marks the latest escalation of official homophobia and especially transphobia on the right.