fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Yes, Highlights Is Going Gay

The venerable children's magazine officially embraces the Sexual Revolution
9303089680_0fe553a33d_z

You may recall the recent post here revealing that Highlights For Children, the venerable magazine, had come under fire from SJWs for its policy of not featuring families headed by gay couples in the magazine, out of a willingness to allow parents of the magazine’s young subscribers the opportunity to talk to their children about homosexuality as they considered appropriate.

Well, the SJWs got their scalp. A reader forwarded me the correspondence between herself and the magazine around the issue. She kept writing, trying to get a straightforward answer about whether or not the magazine was going to feature same-sex families. Finally, out of frustration, she cancelled her family’s subscription, and told the magazine, “I think Highlights should continue being what it is and leave conversations about this sort of thing up to families.”

At last, the reader got a response. Emphasis below is mine:

Dear [Name],

Thank you for your message, and I’m sorry that we were slow to respond.

Although I see that you have already canceled your subscription, I thought it still important to answer your questions about what Highlights means when we say we plan to be more fully reflective of all families, including families with same-sex parents.

As you know, Highlights publications focus on kids. We are general interest magazines, and we publish fiction and nonfiction of all types, as well as games, puzzles, jokes, and crafts. Our target audience is kids under the age of 12, most under the age of 8 or 9.

The themes we cover in our magazines are broad and universal—relatable to children trying to navigate childhood. Because children are our focus, we rarely show a full family in our illustrations, instead focusing on showing the child the reader relates to. When a parent is shown or integrated in a story, it is frequently just one parent because a good 800-word children’s story cannot support too many different characters.

When we do show families in the magazines, we make it a point to include diversity. We strive to be diverse in every way. The goal, however, is not to specifically call attention to diversity but instead to help kids understand that while differences exist, we are all actually more alike than different. For instance, from time to time we show families headed up by a grandparent or single parents. We show adoptive families, blended families, multi-generational families, and multi-racial families. In the future, we will depict same-sex families in our magazines in a manner consistent to the way all diverse families are depicted. This is in support of our mission to help children become their best selves and understand that all families, including theirs, are important.

We’re sorry to lose you as a subscriber, but I hope this email helps to clarify our position.

Sincerely,

Christine Cully

So, that settles that. Just wanted to update you. In five years, the magazine will no doubt face pressure to queer Gallant, or in some other way highlight children who claim to be gay or transgender — and it will yield, as institutions always do these days. I’m not being snarky. This will happen. These are small things, but they testify to the massive cultural change that has taken place. You might call it good, you might call it bad, but you have to call it a cultural revolution.

Advertisement

Comments

Want to join the conversation?

Subscribe for as little as $5/mo to start commenting on Rod’s blog.

Join Now