Oh boy. The Family Research Council, a US organisation that “promotes the traditional family unit and the Judeo-Christian value system upon which it is built”, has finally noticed that BioWare intends to publish a game update to Star Wars: The Old Republic that accommodates same-sex relationships between player characters and NPCs. This didn’t go over well with them, because he’s a total canon fiend who says there can never be anything gay about Star Wars, ever.
On the FRC’s latest radio commentary, broadcast primarily to kilometres of empty space in western Kansas, Tony Perkins excreted this:
In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists! Hello, I’m Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. In a galaxy not so far far away, Star Wars gamers have already gone to the dark side. The new video game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, has added a special feature: gay relationships.
Bioware, the company that developed the game, said it’s launching a same-sex romance component to satisfy some complaints. That surprised a lot of gamers, since Bioware had made it clear in 2009 that “gay” and “lesbian” don’t exist in the Star Wars universe. Since the announcement, homosexuals have been celebrating the news, but parents sure aren’t. On the game’s website, there are more than 300 pages of comments–a lot of them expressing anger that their kids will be exposed to this Star Warped way of thinking. You can join them by logging on and speaking up. It’s time to show companies who the Force is really with!
Is there any right-wing anti-gay tantrum that isn’t expressed with a hilarious sexual double entendre?
Family Research Council Attacks Star Wars: The Old Republic for Same-Sex Relationships [Game Politics]
Joel
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 9:16 AMso a bunch of christian homophobes want gay stuff removed. thats a first. i can say fuck off to them
Jake
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 9:33 AMAgreed. What a bunch of idiots.
Tom
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 9:56 AMI third this notion.
Sean
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 9:20 AMDon’t like it move on don’t push your ideals on others
Ben Jones
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 10:43 AMHang on, isn’t that a little hypocritical?
Martin
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 9:38 AMThat first paragraph is gibberish. Perhaps an Ewok could translate it into english?
Mase
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 9:41 AMI don’t care if it makes me or my SWTOR character look gay, but I want that rainbow light saber blade
Sean
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 9:43 AM1+
Colonel Angus
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 9:58 AMDoes this mean that my Wookiee can descend into my hot Twi’lek snatch now? Or is it still classified as beastiality?
AkIRA
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 11:01 AMHoly shit mate a little bit of wee came out of me I laughed that hard. But the cross species sex is 100% bestiality. But since one of the parties isn’t human then it could be protected under the documentarian ‘educational’ clause in the Laws of classification.
EmbraceThePing
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 4:05 PMI think you’ll find that as it’s really people pretending to be wookies (ewoks etc) that it counts as (ewww) furry sex.
Ok so we have gay/lesbian, furry and trolls already represented in this who else is left out?
Riavan
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 10:31 AMThe only threads I’ve seen have been asking for homosexual relationships or people stating they just won’t use them. (I think I might on a female character? After all I don’t really want to romance a guy, would be weird for me). I’ve seen no one being angry about it being added.
Jake
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 10:35 AMI always think getting married in a MMO is a bit weird anyway though lol. It’s good you can marry anyone though, cos a lot of people play as other genders in MMOs.
AkIRA
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 10:58 AMI hate it when these ‘people’ talk generically about “parents sure don’t” like every parent is a Christian nut who believes the earth is 6 thousand years old, and hates everything that will make them uncomfortable in their gated community.
Stevorooni
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 11:12 AMChristianity doesn’t exist in the Star Wars universe either, so what’s it got to do with them?
Crazyguy1990
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 11:29 AM^This.
Rhodri
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 12:10 PM+1 +2 and um +3
bjg
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 11:48 AMi feel like make a game dedicated the the gays just to piss these Family Research Council fuckwits off.
Mcboobs
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 12:47 PMPretty sure you could have lesbian sex in KOTOR2? Or maybe my brain is confused with all these Bioware dating sims.
MrFaceplant
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 2:10 PMKOTOR 2 was done by obsidian not bioware, don’t remember a lesbian scene you may be confused with ME 2
NegativeZero
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 8:03 PMKotOR allows you to have a lesbian romance with Juhani. Jade Empire had homosexual options as well. I think you need to go back as far as Baldur’s Gate II where they started doing the whole NPC romance thing to find a Bioware game where it’s not an option.
Reign
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 1:13 PMAh, Christian fundamentalists.
Using a book written almost two thousand years ago, comprised of second hand testimonies, written and rewritten dozens of times by individuals each with their own ideals and motivations, translated over and over in different languages… they are able to determine the exact wording said by a man and his intentions with 100% certainty, and believe they can apply that reasoning in a world that has gone through two millenia of change, and force others who don’t believe the same thing to comply with their same deluded sense of morality.
I mean… derp.
Aliasalpha
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 2:17 PMMade all the funnier by the way there’s no reliable documentary evidence (even from the records obsessed romans) that the man they’re talking about ever existed
Scott
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 3:44 PMWith all due respect, and coming from someone who completely condones the freedom to choose a gay/lesbian relationship in a video game, there is little to no evidence behind the common myth that the bible has been re-written to the point of abstraction over the years.
Yes, we’ve been through a millenia of change but our legal system of still heavily based on the 10 commandments.
I’m not being pro or ant-Christian here or anything. But it’s interesting to think that in some ways we as a society have really become independent of Christian teaching but in other areas we’ve are still anchored tightly to them.
Chris Lynn
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 5:49 PM“there is little to no evidence behind the common myth that the bible has been re-written to the point of abstraction over the years.”
Actually, there is evidence. We can look at the various editions over the years and see the differences.
Martin
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 5:51 PMThat is wrong. For starters – walk into a christian bookstore and look at the DIFFERANT variations. Different texts. Different interpretations. Different religions. Different languages. There are varying selections of gospels, letters, psalms etc. Most scholars believe that differing authors created different sections of text that have been almalgamated under a singular authors name i.e. Matthew. Your statement is truly ignorant of the actuality of “the bible’.
Scott
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 6:01 PMI wasn’t talking about variations like translations or languages. That’s to be expected. I was talking about the texts being changed to the point of ‘abstraction’. There’s even been modern translations that make the texts sound more modern. But there has been no known major changes or omissions that are substantial that change the original text.
There still exists today, thousands of hand written original copies and let’s not forget the dead sea scrolls that were uncovered and matched current texts word for word.
You can check Wikipedia or any reliable source on this. Or if you want to you can just provide me two glaringly different versions of a scripture over the years. Trust me, there’s none. Over the thousands of years the texts remain pure, the only arguments are over a small handful of words/sentences (around 3 or 4 hundred words depending on who you ask) that are not really consequential to any of the messages, names or stories.
Don’t get me wrong, I am one of religions biggest critics, I think the modern church is largely appalling and corrupt. But I like to have an open mind. I’m a free thinker and I like to be educated. It’s really easy to claim the bible has been changed beyond recognition over the years to suit different people’s agendas, it’s a very popular claim. But it’s not really true.
Like I said, feel free to prove me wrong.
Chris Lynn
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 10:52 PMGoing back to the beginning for these – Daniel being thrown to a dragon, and obviously the Apocrypha.
Scott
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 1:54 AMNow that’s a fair point. The catholics have truly fucked with the bible and there’s a lot of other books that contain records of the activities of Jesus, especially during his childhood.
But that’s really besides the point. In the beginning the Jews had the Torah and more writings became considered canon until Athanasius eventually pulled together the 66 books that were agreed on by his little counsel.
Now since then there’s been several religions that have tried to add or take away from our bible, I won’t deny that one bit. Even the KKK have been known to do this. But my point is that the original 66 books decided as canon are still unaltered. If you went into any store and bought a bible it’d be translated from that original texts. Even better if you bought a Hebrew/Greek bible it’d be unaltered from the those original texts that still exist today. And there’s no one that can provide any alternate versions of those texts that shows any strong variations from what we have now.
Sure there’s any number of extra books out there and versions with added/subtracted books but to my knowledge there exists no substantial alterations from the collection Athanasius formed and the bible that exists today.
blaze0041
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 1:34 PMReligious fundamentalists: giving everyone else who is moderate and religious a bad name.
Cats
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 3:00 PMSo true
Femto
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 2:22 PMThis coming from a group of religious crackpots who have stated that homosexuality and pedophilia are linked!
Slightly off topic, the Herald Sun featured a double page spread written by former tennis champion , now Pastor Margaret Court stating that homosexuality was a ‘choice’ and also in another recent article Margaret stated that homosexuality is the result of children being molested and growing up confused.
As long as religion is shown ill deserved respect people like Margaret Court and the Family Research Council will have a prominent voice in the media.
Stop and think if this was a non religious group expressing this same opinion they would be shouted down for perpetuating ignorance and hatred! But it seems all you have to say is this is a religious viewpoint and suddenly these type of opinions need to be considered!?!
Why not have articles in the media on holocaust denial written by Neo-Nazis? Surely everyone that forms opinions based on no evidence deserves a voice in the media?
I would argue unless your opinion is based on evidence you should not be given preferential media access any more than another group of people who form opinions in the same manner.
EmbraceThePing
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 4:13 PMBut if the media didn’t have words put in their mouths by politicians and religious groups, via press releases, they’d have to go out and investigate/gather the news and write their own copy.
That’s not the way to make money. Now is it?
Dave
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 7:07 PMLol I same sex relationships will taint their kids minds but the childish stuff said in general chat will not …….
The worst thing is these people most likely have a fair bit of power and support in the US.
P.S.
Here I though Qyzen-Fess religion was keeping score on how many creatures he had killed….. when it was how many dudes he had slept with :)
Sam
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 9:47 PMI’m a little confused, is it actually canon that there’s no homosexuality in the Star Wars Universe? If it is there fair call. I find it extremely bizzare that such a thing would be the case, but I don’t just pretend the homosexual relationships in material I like aren’t there just because I’m not a homosexual… with the excpetion of Anders… but that was just poor writing.
Chris Lynn
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 10:54 PMThere’s some in the Expanded universe, but most people would only think of the movies. They don’t mention it either way, but then it only has two actual couples.
Wormwoods
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 11:57 PMYeah, with only two couples in the films, (Well, i guess there was another in the prequels) it’s not much of a sample, is it?
Fuck it, let Bioware do what they want. If memory serves, Video games are beneath the books when it comes to Lucas’ order of canon, so…it hardly matters.
Sam
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 1:15 AMI’d say if they don’t mention it, then yeah nothing really wrong here. With the prevelance of some form of homosexuality in most species in history you’d need to specifically state it doesn’t occur in said universe for it to be canon I would think.
Still, purely from a writing perspective I think Bioware completely overdo it with the homosexuality, not everyone needs to be bisexual, that people get offended that they can’t romance every male in a game that a female can boggles the mind in it’s own prejudice and outright arrogance.
Sam
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 1:15 AM*bisexuality
[Razor]
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 11:57 PMR2D2 and C3P0 are clearly the canon gay couple.
DKnight1000
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 6:12 PMI thought those two where merely “robosexual”
*runs for cover
Gassaroth
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 11:36 PMBecause spaceships, aliens, the force and other starwars related things are totally christian >.>
Ben Jones
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 10:45 AMFor clarification, you’re comparing fiction with reality.
Duriel
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 12:58 PMwhich ones fiction? the bible or starwars?
Canipa09
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 6:10 PMI think that in a more advanced world, they wouldn’t care about homosexuality like some Neo-Christians do now. So I think I can safely say that this is a perfectly acceptable update and anyone that complains has something really wrong with them.
Dan
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 6:12 PMIs it weird that the first thought that came into my head upon seeing this article was “I want that lightsaber”?
Tom
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 9:34 PMI’m surprised they’re not calling the force witchcraft.
goblin
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 11:37 PMHope Bioware can improve on how they handle gayness.
The character Anders was ruined for me playing dragon age 2 , the fag wouldn’t stop cracking on to me (pity I needed the heals). I really thought he was a cool character after Dragon Age 1 expansion.
At least give us the ability to avoid the gayness, an enable/disable butt buddies in the options (then we all win).
shadow_man
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 9:25 PMThis is the perfect example of how anti-gay people change the bible’s words for their anti-gay agenda.
Corinthians 6:9-11
Let us examine that very closely.
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate [malakoi], nor homosexual offenders [arsenokoites], nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.
First of all, before we address this line, let us consider one thing. Supposedly taken from a 2000+ year old book, understand that the word “homosexual” was not coined until 1869 by Austrian-born novelist Karl-Maria Kertbeny. So how it happens to be included in a true reading of the particular biblical passage should make you ponder how accurate the interpretation actually is. So man changing the words of the Bible to conveniently spread their anti-gay agenda?
Absolutely.