We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby

By: American Decency Staff

By Lisa Van Houten

Take Action!  Click here to send a message to the sponsors empowering “Sean Saves the World.”

“You’ve come a long way, baby.”  I’m old enough to remember that advertising slogan made popular by the Phillip Morris tobacco company in the early 1970s.     Phillip Morris targeted women to buy their Virginia Slims cigarettes, using the popular theme of “women’s liberation” to convince young women that smoking cigarettes in general, and their brand specifically, was glamorous, sexy, and liberating.

The ads weren’t just selling cigarettes; they were selling a concept – changing public perception and helping to create a new cultural norm – female “empowerment.” 

And the ads worked.  The U.S. Surgeon General linked the ad campaign to a marked increase in cigarette smoking among teenage girls and young women.

Forty years later the entertainment and advertising industries have themselves “come a long way” in cultivating the cultural conscience of what is viewed as acceptable and what is not.

In the late 1990s NBC broke new ground with the sitcom “Will & Grace” featuring two homosexual characters in lead roles.  “Will & Grace” was the first network program to really push the homosexual agenda – selling to the American public that homosexuality should be accepted as a new “norm.” 

Again, it worked – propagandizing a young generation of viewers to not only “tolerate” homosexuality, but embrace it.  “Will & Grace” was the top-rated sitcom among young viewers (18 – 49 year olds) – the key demographic in not only selling products, but also selling an agenda.

While there’s not much I agree with when it comes to the opinions and viewpoints of Joe Biden, there is one statement from our vice president with which unfortunately I can’t disagree.  Last year Vice President Biden commented that the TV show Will & Grace “probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody's ever done so far.”  However, I wouldn’t use the term “educate,” – rather, indoctrinate is a more apt description.

NBC is now trying to push the agenda a step further.  One of the stars of Will & Grace, Sean Hayes, is now staring in a new NBC sitcom, Sean Saves the World, about a man, “Sean,” who was married to a woman, fathered a daughter, then realized he was a homosexual, and is now raising his daughter on his own. 

As Phillip Morris used their ads to convince a generation of women that smoking was copacetic, Sean Saves the World is teaching viewers that homosexuality and gay parenting is commendable. 

In addition to the propaganda, it wouldn’t be a sitcom today without a heavy dose of promiscuity and crude sexual innuendo.  In one episode Sean mentions he had sex with his daughter’s soccer coach and, as he prepares to go out on a blind date with another gay man, he tells a friend that hopefully the date will end with sex as he makes lewd, explicit references to oral sex.

One of the show’s main characters is Sean’s mother, Lorna – played by Linda Lavin.  Lorna follows the stereotypical nymphomaniac grandmother portrayed on much of television today.  Let’s just say that Lorna is no Grandma Walton.  Instead, she encourages her 14 year old granddaughter to masturbate, telling her to “explore her own body.”   She also shares “motherly” advice with her gay son as she encourages him to find a man – not for a relationship – but just for sex.   She counsels, “Whose talking about a relationship, just roll around a little, have some fun.  That’s what I do.”

The show’s content goes downhill from there.  As a reviewer for the Salt Lake Tribune wrote:

And, like "Will & Grace" at its worst, "Sean Saves the World" confuses tasteless and vulgar with funny. In one episode, Lorna encourages her granddaughter to examine her own vagina in a mirror. Another episode is replete with uncomfortable incest jokes involving Lorna and Sean.

It's gross and creepy.  …

"Sean Saves the World" just wastes a half hour of your life you'll never get back.

However, Sean Saves the World does much more than waste a half hour of your life; it does what its predecessor, Will and Grace, did – indoctrinate.  Viewers are sold the homosexual agenda, just as teenage girls were sold Virginia Slims cigarettes.  And in both cases, the consequences are devastating. 

The teen girls who bought Virginia Slims didn’t find that smoking brought them glamour or empowerment – rather it often brought lung cancer and death. 

And homosexuality is equally malignant – fostering a lifestyle that not only has physical consequences, but more importantly, spiritual ones.  While we as a culture are paying the price for the promotion of the homosexual agenda as it undermines God’s design for marriage and family, the greatest price to be paid are by those who personally embrace the homosexual lifestyle without repentance.  [Romans 1]  Sean Saves the World doesn’t save or liberate its viewers; rather, the lifestyle it promotes leads only to destruction and condemnation. 

As our culture has realized the damage caused by smoking and now gives great warning of the risk involved, so we warn about the marketing of a destructive and sinful lifestyle, not because we’re “haters” or “intolerant,” but out of love – because we ourselves have experienced redemption from the deadly consequences of our sin.

Take Action!  Click here to send a message to the sponsors empowering “Sean Saves the World.”

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