ND Senator Seeks Rating To Limit Gays On Kid's TV Shows

My girl Brenda watches plenty of dramas currently airing on the former "big three" networks. Shows like This Is Us, Transplant, The Good Doctor, Chicago PD, Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, Chicago Sanitation...all these shows are often going on in the background of my evenings. One show that seems to stand out a bit to me is "New Amsterdam" because of its wealth of gay characters.

I think we all agree that many more LGBTQ characters are popping up on TV.

Senator Kevin Kramer and four of his Senate colleagues recently drafted and signed a letter they sent to Mr. Charles Rivkin, Chairman of the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board. You can read it in its entirety here. Here's an excerpt...

The Board is obligated to ensure the rating criteria helps parents be informed about mature content before it is displayed to their children. In light of parents raising legitimate concerns on sexual orientation and gender identity content on children’s TV shows, we expect the Board to fulfill its responsibility in updating the TV Parental Guidelines to reflect these concerns

The letter addresses the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which among its far-reaching system reform, required manufacturers to install a V-Chip in all TV receivers. The V-Chip was created to allow parents to oversee the content available to their children.

A rating system is established and users can now block certain rated programs

TV-Y - All children can watch; zero violence or sexual content
TV-Y7 - For children 7 and over
TV-G - For general audiences; no sex, violence or inappropriate language
TV-PG - Parental guidance suggested
TV-14 - Suitable only for people over 14; some sex or violence
TV-MA - Suitable only for mature audiences; may contain graphic violence or sexual situations

Seems the five Senators would now like to add an additional rating for LGBTQ content. Although directed at children's programming, the sexual orientation block could also be applied across the board.

A Disney executive's Zoom call seems to have motivated the Senator's request.

The call was part of Disney’s “Reimagine Tomorrow” campaign, according to the video posted on Twitter Tuesday. Its website promises that 50 percent of regular and recurring characters across the Disney universe will come from “underrepresented groups.”

That call along with Disney's newly proposed inclusion standards has really stirred a hornets' nest of controversy. China bans homosexual content in any form from airing in their country. Should the United States follow suit or are we closing the barn door after all the cows already got out?