There are a lot of strange moral, and ethical battles happening everyday. Should there be a course in public schools that teaches from the bible? Should anti-used games technology exist? One of the most asinine arguments however, has to go to the latest cause of the Family Research Council.
The FRC is upset over the fact that Bioware’s newest MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic will some day have same gender companion romance option. However, the broadcast, labeled “Rebel Fleet Surrenders to Gay Empire” is grossly misinformed.
“In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists! Hello, I’m Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. In a galaxy not so far far away, Star Wars gamers have already gone to the dark side.
“The new video game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, has added a special feature: gay relationships. Bioware, the company that developed the game, said it’s launching a same-sex romance component to satisfy some complaints. That surprised a lot of gamers, since Bioware had made it clear in 2009 that “gay” and “lesbian” don’t exist in the Star Wars universe.
“Since the announcement, homosexuals have been celebrating the news, but parents sure aren’t. On the game’s website, there are more than 300 pages of comments–a lot of them expressing anger that their kids will be exposed to this Star Warped way of thinking.
“You can join them by logging on and speaking up. It’s time to show companies who the Force is really with!”
I took it upon myself to scour the SWTOR forums to find both the official announcement that “gay relations” have been added to the game, as I’m sure many of you would have found this news exciting, as well as the so-called 300+ pages of comments. Disappointingly, I found nothing of the sort. This is the closest thing I could find to an official statement regarding this matter.
Originally Posted by StephenReid
Official statement follows:Due to the design constraints of a fully voiced MMO of this scale and size, many choices had to be made as to the launch and post-launch feature set. Same gender romances with companion characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic will be a post-launch feature. Because The Old Republic is an MMO, the game will live on through content expansions which allow us to include content and features that could not be included at launch, including the addition of more companion characters who will have additional romance options.
This makes perfect sense as to why homosexuality was not included in the game upon launch, but this also means that the option will become available in some future expansion. This means that it doesn’t have to be the next expansion, or even the expansion after that. So who knows when we will be able to see this highly demanded feature, and to those parents who don’t want homosexual romance option in SWTOR because of you kids, be a parent, and stop your kids from playing the game.
CarmenD
January 29, 2012 at 8:04 PMBeing gay has been legal here for 20? years, if america was allowed to go gay it would lose most of its population. People being able to visualize their fantasies and tell themselves if its okay in star wars its okay real life would end their breeding cycle and the credit card companies / fast food would be looking for culprits. These bitch moms are only campaigning against it because they have nothing else to do, they could just as easily be campaigning for gay rights.
Paul Clark (@golephish)
January 30, 2012 at 12:13 AMI am by no means supporting either side of the coin, but I find it dumb that the reason they’d stop their children from playing a game, is that there MIGHT be same sex relationships. It is a game, and if the player is unable to distinguish the game from reality, you really should have that player evaluated. I don’t see bioware doing this as PRO Gay/Gay rights, or see them as trying to illicit support for same sex relationships. As all things, it is up to the end user, and the parents to control what they want. I do agree that this is a silly thing to be up in arms about. Too bad the gay community doesn’t have a (single) spokesperson. I’d like to hear from them.