Stephen Fry Defends Electronic Arts Against Anti-Gay Controversy

I’m only playing ME2 now, and the scene where Mordin Solus says he’s getting sick of all the crew hitting on him is utterly hilarious.  And he sings Gilbert and Sullivan.

I’m not gay, but if he’s one of the options in ME3, I’d seriously consider it.

Next stop…Harvest Moon.

Bioware themselves have already said they’re not planning to change course on their plans to include same gender romances in Star Wars: The Old Republic (the real puzzling thing is why they weren’t in at launch). But I signed the poll anyway, I just used it to give EA and Bioware a pat on the back for doing their part in making LBGT love more accepted amongst gamers, however clumsily written their romances can be at times.

Plus, y’know, those angry parents should realise that if they walk into the room and see their son/daughter playing Mass Effect or TOR and romancing a character of the same gender that it says more about their child than the game (and they should accept that).
That said, I always play as female characters in Bioware games, I do wonder what they’d make of that.

I believe they actually included the choice for a same sex relationship in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic(Granted, I think the player had to work at it pretty hard). So kudos to them for including the option for so long and only starting to get letters for it now.

Sorry protestors, “think fo the children” doesn’t work on games with an A rating. that stands for “adult” in case you missed it.

T for teens on Star Wars… I’m pretty sure the average teen knows what gay is.

At what point did the article suggest it was talking about “angry parents”? I’m sure there are some among the complainers, but stereotyping parents as the only ones who would ever complain about in-game same sex options is hurtful and harmful nonsense.

Have people forgotten the old game ‘Temple of Elemental Evil’ that old, old old D&D computer game?  It had a gay storyline (involving a pirate and his cabin boy), and that didn’t ruin the story.  Heck, I found it to be sort of a ‘Law and Order’ twist when you actually have to use one of your male characters to seduce him.  LOL.

Well, last week there were reports on various gaming sites about “Family Values” groups pressuring EA to remove same sex romance options from Mass Effect 3 and The Old Republic to basically “protect the children”, this petition is a direct counter-reaction to that. There was a similar movement around the time The Old Republic launched as well.

Perhaps the most surprising thing is that they’re seemingly fine with all the murder, extortion and torture that can happen between the two games.

And while you’re quite right that there no doubt are also gay haters who aren’t parents, these groups (much like the “One million moms”… which count about 40k people) are a huge part of the driving force behind pressure against EA and Bioware.

SWTOR has a lot of issues that need to be addressed. Too much gay isn’t one of them.

I am aware the groups say “for the children”, but it is extremely easy to just hijack another’s kids’ existence and claim you are trying to keep those kids safe. It’s not like there will be many check-ups if the children they are claiming to protect are their own or of anyone that wants their interference. Heck, I’ve seen kids themselves claim they are doing complaining on something “for the children”, often in an effort to dodge responsibility for their own bigotry.

Signed the petition.

And again (sigh) “think of the children”? It still baffles the hell out of me how they think the LGBT or *knowing* about LGBT will traumatize any of these kids who would inevitably see/hear/think about this.

I think they ought to at least be more honest about what they’re afraid of, which is, “think of us having to explain to our kids how it is that LGBT couples actually live normal, productive, and loving lives when they really ought to be struck down and turned to salt by their angry and righteous God as they Bible says they should, but they’re not, so it undermines our Christian beliefs.” But then I suppose, that really wouldn’t help their “complaint” much.

I would sign petitions if I ever played videogames of any sort other than farmville

Their child should not be playing 18′s rated video games =P

I fear the timing of this anti-boycott business seems very convenient for EA, like they’re trying to write the “other” backlash they’re receiving off as “homophobia”, or at least bury it. They seem to be playing the victim, and making it appear that they’re a nice, warm and fuzzy company just trying to stand up for gay rights. This could not be further from the truth, and I say this as a firm supporter of gay rights and as someone who’s taken part in gay rights protests before.
What many people seem to not realise (especially people who don’t play video games), is that there really are currently TWO very seperate anti-EA movements at work. There are the homophobic professional boycotters (the vast majority of whom do not even care about video games), and then there are the people who do play video games and have a problem with everything EA has been doing in recent years. They are responsible for the vast, vast majority of the outcry against EA and the whole gay relationship issue is not even relevant to them (read: us).

I have already encountered people on the internet accusing me of being anti-gay after they’ve found out about my anti-EA sentiments. This frustrates me, because it demonstrates how succesful EA’s PR department have been at drowning out the huge backlash of gamers by crying “homophobe!”. They’ve done this before when people were criticizing Jennifer Hepler of Bioware for her poor writing. Only back then, they cried “sexist!” merely because of Jennifer’s gender, when in fact the only people who’d even brought her gender or looks up were a tiny, vocal minority of kids who just thought it’d be funny to fling insults anonymously. Many people genuinely had a problem with her writing.

It’s the same thing here, only amplified. EA have won The Consumerist’s award for “Worst Company In America” for a reason – or rather many, many reasons which should be obvious to anyone who’s been following the video game industry at all for the last years. Just to recap, however, here are a few recent examples: buying and shutting down other game companies en masse, forcing customers to use Origin (a program that could almost be called spyware), terrible customer service, popularisation of day-1-DLC (locking down content on finished products to rob their customers of even more money), and so on and so forth.

I’ve written this comment in hopes that it will clear things up for some people who may be thinking of signing the petition, yet don’t know the full story. This isn’t the full story, mind. It’s a sort of nutshell.

I’ve made very little attempt to hide the fact that I’m pretty much boycotting the Star Wars franchise in any form. Not because of gay relationship or any of that. Simply because of my unwillingness to pay money to watch Lucas continue to ruin was was once a really fun universe.

That being said. Signed and forwarded to a handful of friends because despite my feelings toward the current state of the franchise this is less about Star Wars and more about the promotion of general equality.

As of just short of 6:30, they’re past 50,000 names, and are marching on to 75,000.

Pretty sure not all those names are from gay people.

Pretty much, yeah.

To a point, female player characters could romance Juhani, but it wasn’t exactly fleshed out. Nor did it go into much detail. In Jade Empire and Mass Effect 1 & 2 you could also have lesbian romances. It wasn’t until Dragon Age (2009) that Bioware had its first game with male on male romance. So there you have it.

It doesn’t “undermine” any Christian beliefs. God loves everyone, period. Gay sex is considered to be sinful, but so is extramarital sex and you don’t see God “striking anyone down” for that. Doing something described as being against His will does not mean He hates you and will never forgive you.
 
And these people shouldn’t even make this into a big issue in the first place. Pretending gay people don’t exist is not only stupid, but ultimately pointless. Preach love and acceptance, not hate and scorn.  
 
“For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” (Matthrew 7:2)

 ”Think of the children”?  I am.  Thinking about the 1 and 10 who will discover they are gay, and that doesn’t even include the several-more-than-ten who will find they are not 100% straight.  There are so mamy different points on the sexuality spectrum.   Also, there are plenty of straight kids out there who have same-sex parents, and pretty much everybody has someone in their immediate or extended family who is gay. 

Honestly, I can throw Matthew 7:2 right back at you.  We feel the same way about your homophobia. Hatred is, to us, the sin. For those of us who grew up with religion, we think that when you get to judgment day, God’s going to tell you, “Why did you have such hate for your gay brothers and lesbian sisters? I created them, same as I created you.”

You see how this works?

Extramarital sex is a sin against the person you’re supposedly committed to. I don’t need some written text to tell me it’s wrong. The two are different because with sexual orientation, you are what you are and that’s alright. With extramarital sex, you’re just being a jerk. It’s reprehensible whether you’re straight or gay.

Please indicate where  I in my post  I give the message that I “hate” gay people.  Are you sure you’re not projecting?

For whatever reason, homosexual sex is described as being a sin in the Bible. If you take the Bible was the Word of God then there’s no way to get around this. This does not mean that gay people should be treated poorly, or shunned.

Please indicate where  I in my post  I give the message that I “hate” gay people.  Are you sure you’re not projecting?
 
For whatever reason, homosexual sex is described as being a sin in the Bible. If you take the Bible was the Word of God then there’s no way to get around this. This does not mean that gay people should be treated poorly, or shunned.

So perhaps I just need clarification here. Perhaps I misunderstood your post. And I wasn’t clear in mine. I don’t think all Christians think like these homophobic ones. My mother and brother are Christians and they don’t act this way or even feel this way. Do you think this complaint is wrong? And for what reasons?

For what it’s worth, I’ve found in my daily interactions that for every LGBT-inclusive Christian I’ve met, there are a handful that aren’t, so yes, I am assuming that most Christians I meet are homophobic and must explicitly be told otherwise.

I wish I could like a post multiple times.

I really wish more supposed Christians would actually read the book they’re supposed to be taking from.  “Do unto others that which you would have them do unto you,” “love one another” and all that.

Heh, I’m a bit surprised to see Mr. Fry on the Mary Sue after his, ahem, remarks in regards to the female gender’s lack of enjoyment of sex (despite his attempts to damage-control on his blog, dragging the journalist’s name through the muck).  But still.

What exactly are you referring to when you say they “don’t act this way or feel this way?” Do you mean they don’t act bigoted and prejudiced towards gay people? If so, then they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing as Christians, i.e not judging and treating others the way they would to be treated. This, in essence, is Christianity. Jesus said once that it is more important to uphold the spirit of the law than the letter. When people become too preoccupied with the letter (the rules set forth in the old testament) and ignore the spirit (by judging others when Jesus explicitly says not to judge and be a hypocrite), then they fail as a Christian. 

When you say your family doesn’t “act of feel this way,” do you mean in reference to how homosexuality is considered to be a sin? It’s simple fact that homosexual acts in the Bible are not painted in a positive light, and yes, there are verses that condemn it. While we may not agree with the sentiment, those are clearly the ideas expressed and it is difficult to claim otherwise. That being said, the concept of homosexuality back in Biblical times was a lot different than it is today and it is important to take the historical context into consideration. And again, the spirit of the law is what’s most important.

This essay does a good job analyzing the Bible passages that mention homosexuality and encourages acceptance: http://www.jlarue.com/wtbs.html

I’m sorry if there was any confusion.

Not signing the petition – as a gay adult, I’m FAR too ashamed to be playing videogame romances. Besides, haven’t they had lesbian romances for a while now? It seems only fair that if they’ve been setting gender roles up as ‘lol women are just there to be looked at’ then this is the fanbase reaction they should expect.Also, some of the complaints were ‘giving Shepard a gay option has ruined the ME canon’ and therefore I conclude that everyone involved is awful and creepy. 

I think it would be nice if the OP had included a link to Fry’s bizarre hypothesis on female sexuality. It’s even tangentially related since Fry discussed women’s sexuality exclusively in terms of sex with men, and thus either doesn’t think queer women exist or believes we live like nuns.

Nevertheless, while it would be nice to see a mention of past problematic statements, I don’t think the site should refrain from ever mentioning him: his statement is news, after all, no matter your opinion of him.

There IS no anti-gay backlash, they’re making it up to cover up the anger over the atrocious Mass Effect ending. You’ll notice that the petition is mostly being signed by EA’s bots.

That’s not entirely accurate. There was an anti-gay backlash from various Christian fundamentalist organisations, but it looks like the last letter-writing campaign against them was a month ago and the last criticism by a major group (the Family Research Council) was back in January. EA’s announcement of it was just conveniently timed precisely to distract from them winning Consumerist’s Worst Company of the Year award for unrelated reasons.

Correction: They aren’t creating a new ending in the DLC. They’re creating a DLC to further explain the endings that already exist.