Hate group leader Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, claims that gays make up 30% of TV show characters and storylines, and that "lovable gay characters" – presumably ones like Cam and Mitchell from Modern Family – are Trojan horses used to "desensitize Americans," reports Right Wing Watch.
Said Perkins:
The debate over same-sex marriage has been perfectly scripted by Hollywood. Television shows are full of lovable gay characters, whose dangerous lifestyle is just another funny footnote. Unfortunately for America, those make-believe people are having a real-life impact. In a new survey, almost 20% of Americans credit television with changing their minds on same-sex marriage. And that's no accident. Homosexuals make up 4% of the population, but they're a whopping 30% of TV characters and storylines. Liberals are using this barrage to desensitize America and viewers are buying it. Of course, producers don't show you the reality of homosexuality: the men and women dying of AIDS, or the same-sex couples threatening Christian businesses. They don't cast the Dan Savages bullying kids or the parents kicked out of school for opposing gay curriculum. Like most everything else on TV, it's fiction.
The 30% statistic is pulled from a quote by screenwriter Barbara Nicolosi over at the National Catholic Register, who offers no context or source for her statistic beyond her subjective experiences in Hollywood. Barbara is the Founder and Chair Emeritus of Act One, Inc., a Christian non-profit organization that trains aspiring scriptwriters and producers starting out in Hollywood.
GLAAD calculates a slightly different statistic for the 2012-2013 season at 4.4%, with the five major broadcast networks – ABC, CBS, The CW, Fox, and NBC – offering 31 regular and 19 recurring characters that identify as LGBT in their scripted series and mainstream cable providing 35 regular and 26 recurring LGBT characters.
