Florida Agenda

TAMPA – The Florida Family Association (FFA) is calling the upcoming “Gay Days” event “offensive” and has condemned those parks and facilities that welcome the LGBT tourists who will be attending.

The Tampa-based conservative organization’s Web site asks “How would you feel if you entered the Magic Kingdom anticipating a normal day of fun with your family only to witness thousands of same-sex couples holding hands, hugging, kissing and wearing tee-shirts that promoted their lifestyle?”

Walt Disney World does not participate officially in Gay Days, which began in 1991 and will be held this year from May 29 through June 4. Since 2010, organizers say that more than 20,000 participants attend the weeklong schedule of parties and events at Central Florida area theme parks and hotels. FFA’s Gay Days warning alerts supporters that “ust like activists’ attempt to gain access to youthful minds through LGBT characters in video games, they also want to impact a captured audience of tens of thousands of children during the first Saturday of Summer Break.”

As it did last year, the organization is trying to raise money to rent a banner plane to fly over the Magic Kingdom and “warn families about this offensive event before they [arrive] at the park on Saturday.” The group claims that last year’s “banner influenced mainstream family attendance at Disney during Gay Day to DROP between 50 percent to 60 percent.”

“We believe this aircraft banner warning to families SPARED TENS OF THOUSANDS of children from the unexpected exposure to this coming out party,” the Web site warns. Among the things FFA hopes to prevent by the campaign is to help prevent parents from exposing “their children to same-sex revelry.” The group says they have raised about half of the $8,400 cost to fly a banner plane around the park.

Florida Family Association: Gays Have Corrupted the “Star Wars” Universe TAMPA – Fans of the “Stars Wars” film franchise may be surprised to learn that the “Old Republic” is still threatened—not by the evil Lords of the Sith but by members of the religious right who are expressing their anger at the creator of “Star Wars: The Old Republic,” because the makers of the popular online video game plan to allow players the option of simulating same-sex intimacy.

In an alert sent to members and posted online last week, the Tampa-based Florida Family Association (FFA) suggested that the game designers could engineer a simulated “Darth VaPaula, a (mock) transgender version of Darth Vader–RuPaul, for kids to choose as their action player.”

David Caton, the president of FFA, expressed dismay for the mere existence of gay and transgendered characters in the fictional Star Wars universe, which was originally created in the 1977 film, “Star Wars: A New Hope,” a movie that spawned a multi-billion dollar international film, software, fashion, and multimedia franchise.

“There were no LGBT characters in any of the ‘Star Wars’ movies,” objected Caton, whose previous targets include the cartoon “Family Guy,” and a successful campaign to scare sponsors from the reality series “All- American Muslim.”

Of BioWare’s game, the FFA alert claimed that “LGBT activists are demanding that the makers of Star Wars video games add LGBT characters for kids to select as their action figure when playing the games.”

The “Star Wars: The Old Republic” video game is one of a genre known as Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG), in which players who have logged into a virtual gaming universe based upon the Star Wars films and other media, assume the role of characters who interact with other players and the artificial environment of the game’s “world.” The virtual characters are heavily customized, with options to choose species, gender—male or female only—and other features.

The FFA warning states that “Children and teens, who never thought anyway but heterosexual, are now given a choice to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender in their game player.”

In fact, character “romances in “The Old Republic” are only initiated at the player’s option, and at present, only heterosexual relationships are available. BioWare officials have said that they will add same-sex relationship options in the future, which sparked outrage on the part of the religious right.

“If BioWare, the maker of ‘Star Wars’ video games, adds LGBT characters for kids to select as their action figure,” added Caton in the FFA alert, “it could be something like Darth RuPaula, a combination of Darth Vader, one of the most popular ‘Star Wars’ characters, and RuPaul, the renown transgender cross dresser,” although his characterization of the performer is incorrect, as RuPaul is a drag entertainer, not a transgendered individual. FFA’s alert also claimed that “An overwhelming percentage of the 1.7 million games sold are being used by children who do not need to be introduced to this propaganda.”

This contradicts research conducted over the past ten years, which shows that the average age of an MMORPG player is in the mid-20s, and that approximately 75% are 18 years or older. Experts say that such games are neither marketed to nor designed for children, as they require a credit card to pay the monthly fee.

This is only the most recent in a string of attacks by the political and religious right against BioWare: Right Wing Watch reported that the American Decency Association condemned the software designer for pandering to “homosexual extremists.”

And in January, the president of the Family Research Council slammed BioWare after it was announced that a same-sex intimacy option would soon be available for characters. In a weekly radio address titled “Rebel Fleet Surrenders to Gay Empire,” Tony Perkins said that “the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists.”