Daytime Smooch, Moral Indignation

Pretty much everyone in the gay community is used to double-standards, hypocrisy, and various other "stones" we get used against us. Of course, that doesn't make it any better.

Case in point, last week on "Days of Our Lives" (DooL), there was a kiss featured on the show. No big deal, right? I'm pretty sure every day on every soap opera, someone is kissing someone else. Well, to some people, this one was a big deal because it was between two young men (Will Horton and a guy called Neil). Some people took exception. A fellow reader of AfterElton.com posted some responses he had found:

1)Dear NBC-Days of Our Life,

 I really think it is a crying shame that you want to ruin the show by promoting gaynisum. How sad for you as I will no longer watch your show and everyone else that I know that watch’s your show , will be changing the channel when it comes on. It is very sickening to see two people of the same sex making out on public TV. This is not what I would teach my children or grand-children. It is so wrong and against “God’s” wishes.

Best Regards,

From a 35 Year Viewer of your show (20 likes)

2)This part was very disgusting. Made me sick to my stomach, thank goodness that I had it record on DVR so I could skip it. If they want to make will gay then whatever but don't show this on t.v. my kids can see this and I don't approve of it. I love Days and have watched it since I was little but if this continue I think Days will go down.

As to the first response, get some Pepto Bismol and get over it. As to the second, I can think of many reason your kids shouldn't watch this show (mainly, they should be in school), but two dudes kissing sure isn't one of them.

Seriously though, consider all of the things that happen on soap operas. There is lying and deceit, adultery and pre/extra-marital sex, murder and violence, drug use, and so many other things that are ACTUALLY abhorrent in real life. Given that soaps have survived (more or less) for several decades, I would say middle America not only eats all that up, but asks for more.

Let's go back to that first response I quoted above, the one saying that it's "against God's wishes." I wonder if that responder thought the same thing when DooL did a storyline years ago where a character was possessed by a demon. Yes, you read that correctly, POSSESSED BY A DEMON. Or, far more recently, Sami (Will's mother) cheated on her husband with an ex that she supposedly hates. Was there the same moral indignation there and then?

In fact, during any of these storylines on any of these shows that commit a forbidden sin prohibited (or allegedly prohibited) by religious faith, where is the moral outrage? Where are the threats of boycotts? None of that stuff seems to materialize...until they show those dirty homosexual perverts. Then, and ONLY then, do people feel so disgusted that responses like those above (and far worse) start flying about.

The anger isn't because "it's against God's will." If that's why they are so upset, then they would have stopped watching decades ago and soap operas would be completely dead. These people should just be honest with themselves. Don't drag God into it. Don't drag "morality" into it. You're just doing your so-called beliefs a disservice with such blatant ideological inconsistency. The good news is that people like these two responders are part of an ever-shrinking minority, which is probably part of why they're so angry. Being left behind by social change tends to do that to people.