Do you remember running home or to the car after school, waving your report card?
A good one was the currency of childhood, exchanged for a quick trip to that new eatery that only served their chicken sandwiches in the mall, and quarters, so we could take an extended trip to the arcade after the sandwiches.
Back then, the arcade was a thing. PAC-MAN, Galaga, or Donkey Kong were played in semi-darkness, lit only by the lights of the game and the glow of being a kid with all or mostly A’s on the report card.
But today’s video games aren’t what they once were: innocent fun sans cultural commentary. No. Now the trans ideology has made its way to at least 10 video games.
So, even if you’re fighting against things like the assignment on privilege, gender and orientation recently discovered at Prattville High school, or the now-retired teacher from Mountain Gap Middle School who doubled as a drag queen, or applauding Baldwin County Superintendent Eddie Tyler for pushing back against pronoun nonsense, our kids likely won’t avoid trans issues because game makers are 27 steps ahead.
“‘The Sims 4,’ which calls itself ‘the ultimate life simulation game’ on its website, announced Tuesday that it would allow players to give characters ‘top scars’ that come from breast removal surgery,” Fox News recently reported. “The announcement drew a swift backlash online, with many gamers and parents expressing horror that a game, especially one that is marketed to children, would promote transgender surgeries.”
Of course parents were horrified! Because even if Sims 4 doesn’t realize it, we parents know what top surgery is: a mastectomy, endured by women with breast cancer. It’s not a fashionable surgery meant to casually lop off girls' body parts because they’re confused about who they are. It’s grotesque.
“Everyone wants to see themselves and their identities represented in their favorite forms of media, and video games are no exception,” CBR, a comics industry news source also noted. “But, for the most part, the inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters at all is more of a recent trend, with transgender characters falling behind even further.”
Have these game makers no shame?
How many kids engage in online gaming and might see the characters in Sims 4 or other games? A recent survey shows that 71% of children between age two and 17 play video games.
Seventy-one percent. Let that sink in. That means that most people reading this have kids who are impacted.
Do boys or girls play more often? “Twice as many parents say their teen boy plays video games every day compared to parents of teen girls (41% vs. 20%),” a recent survey from C.S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital reported, and often for longer periods of time.
Finally, a recent survey from A Wired Family shows that over 60% of kids spend more than five hours daily playing video games or viewing social media.
Game manufacturers are at war with us. They know how long young eyes stare at their screens and interact with their characters. They know they’re openly proselytizing our kids, baptizing them into this religion of gender Marxism and queer theory that most parents diametrically oppose.
Our kids aren’t only hearing about this new religion through school assignments, and these games aren’t found in the arcades of old — now they’re live and in living color on your 70" screen.
It’s exhausting to keep up with the new ways that sin is slithering into our homes, but the home is precisely where we can most effectively wage war. The nuclear family, no matter how it’s attacked, is still the soil, seed, root and flower upon which society withers or blooms. It’s still the God-ordained place of comfort and protection for our kids. It’s the place where they learn what’s good and right and true. It’s the platform from which they see us fight back against the schemes of the enemy. And, it’s where they learn how to fight back, too.
It is a sacred place.
Which is why the trans agenda is headed there, to the true epicenter of culture, with video games or school assignments. Because whether they admit it or not, they instinctively understand its power.
The question is, do we?
“Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters and your wives and your homes.” — Nehemiah 4:14
Amie Beth Shaver is a speaker, writer and media commentator. Her column appears every Wednesday in 1819 News. Shaver served on the Alabama GOP State Executive Committee, was a candidate for State House District 43 and spokeswoman for Allied Women.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com.
