If you thought Frozen was an innocent animated musical, how very wrong you were. According to a Mormon grandma writing on her blog "A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman," the film is actually promoting a (gasp!) "gay agenda to normalize homosexuality," indoctrinating youth to the dangerous cult of same-sex lovin'.
No word on exactly how she reached this conclusion (too many song and dance numbers? The snowman is overly effeminate?), but you have to give grannie credit: As far as fear-mongering terminology goes, "gay agenda" is top-of-the-line stuff.
Indeed, conservatives have been wielding this framing device as their scare-tactic weapon of choice for years. One of the earliest known uses of the term was a 1985 conservative memo opposing the "overall agenda" of the gay community. Since then, it's been on an unheralded linguistic warpath.
Conservapedia (wait, is that a joke site?!) describes the "homosexual agenda" as a "self-centered set of beliefs and objectives designed to promote and even mandate approval of homosexuality and homosexual ideology."
The innocuously named American Family Association decries the agenda's "list of demands" (those gays...so greedy!), while noting:
"...we believe the core goal of the homosexual movement is to abolish the traditional, Judeo-Christian view of human sexuality, marriage and family. In that regard, the homosexual movement is the latest and most radical manifestation of the Sexual Revolution."
The power of the term comes from its loaded deeper meaning: Gays aren't fighting for equality, but for normalizing homosexuality to the point where everyone (even innocent children!) become gay, too. (Or, as Renew America helpfully puts it, "tolerance has never been enough for the gay activists. They expect society to fully embrace their sexual lifestyle, and they use coercion and strong-arm tactics to achieve that goal.")
It's the scariest of conservative fears -- a world where gays, like the monkeys of Planet of the Apes, have taken control of schools, churches and the world at large -- tidily wrapped up in a two-word package of bulls*it.
Personally, we think "gay agenda" sounds like a really boring schedule of activities (10 am: Be gay; 11 am: Still be gay). But as long as it's being used in the context of normalizing homosexuality, it will continue to serve as a powerful tool in the conservative artillery against equal rights. Or as we like to call it, the "homophobic agenda."
