Right-Wing Group Trying to Exclude LGBTQ Families from Highlights Magazines

• Media Coverage • censorship, children's magazines

MegaphoneBack in October, after an inquiry by a queer mom and encouragement from other LGBTQ parents and allies, Highlights magazines committed to incorporating same-sex parented families in its pages. Now, right-wing group One Million Moms is trying to stop them.

One Million Moms (who are not as numerous as the name implies) is a project of the American Family Association, which has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. On its website, One Million Moms writes of Highlights’ decision to include families with same-sex parents:

Babies and preschoolers will soon be introduced to this sensitive topic in the Highlights line of magazines. Parents are seeing more examples of children being indoctrinated to same-sex families as normal, especially in the media.

The horror. Because clearly we all put our toilet paper on the spindle the wrong way, and that’s perverse.

The group continues: “This would be a deal breaker for conservative families. Parents are left with no other choice than to cancel their subscription.”

I’m actually fine with that. If parents don’t want to bring a magazine with same-sex parents into their homes, they should cancel their subscriptions. Personally, I think that’s narrow minded, but it’s their choice.

One Million Moms goes on, however: “Even if 1MM didn’t disagree morally with the decision, it is not a magazines’ [sic] job to introduce so called ‘social issues’ to children. That is a parent’s role.”

That’s where I saw red. My family is not a “social issue,” except insofar as every human interaction is a “social issue.” If that’s the case, then Highlights shouldn’t show different-sex parents in its pages, either.

Not only that, but if it’s the parents’ role, not the magazine’s, to decide when to introduce certain topics to children, then the magazine should be allowed to include same-sex families, confident that parents will play their part and monitor their kids’ reading should they so choose. I hope, however, that many more families will decide to subscribe to Highlights‘ various magazines (and those of fellow LGBTQ-inclusive children’s magazine publisher Cricket), knowing that the magazine is committed to helping children from all types of families feel like they belong.

I’ve also seen One Million Moms’ call posted on a few other right-wing websites. Let’s make our voices louder than theirs. Please contact Highlights to let them know you support inclusion of LGBTQ families:

(I’m not linking directly to One Million Moms because I don’t want to boost their Web rankings. If you wish to read their entire post, it’s at: http://www.onemillionmoms.com/current-campaigns/highlights-magazine-has-caved-to-the-left/)

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