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The Timothy Plan is a "Christian financial planning" firm which "avoids investing in companies that are involved in practices contrary to Judeo-Christian principles. Our goal is to recapture traditional American values. We are America's first pro-life, pro-family, biblically-based mutual fund group." Intrigued yet? Their claim is that, "If you are concerned with the moral issues (abortion, pörnography, anti-family entertainment, non-married lifestyles, alcohol, tobacco and gambling) that are destroying children and families you have come to the right place." Among the services they offer, they produce a report on video games and the "Top Offenders" of games which, apparently, lead down the long hard road to a hellish disregard and potential destruction of the coveted traditional American family. Truly, I wish that I could hate them more than I do. Their mission goes against my own. Their purpose in existing runs counter to anything I can really get behind. At the same time, however, it's difficult for me to hate them wholly or with complete vengeance as they feel that their mission is right...just as I feel my mission is. Unlike other standard Christian Right organizations, they seem to realize that their particular values aren't necessarily for everyone, stating regarding the video game report, "This is purely meant to inform parents who are concerned with the moral content/issues contained in video games and make available to them information which is not easily found."

That being said, I still feel that Christian Right values, in the variety of forms they take, are nigh completely conduits of hate. Whether the organization or individual itself pronounces their mission or views, through materials or speech, in more obviously hateful ways or not, hate still lies behind all of it. Fear, too. And, given all the recent activity in same-sex marriage/union laws in the past couple of weeks (with Iowa, Vermont, Colorado, and Washington DC - Read more at Huffington Post, I feel it is worth looking at now - even though the Timothy report came out last December. What do seemingly innocuous organizations contribute to hate? If The Timothy Plan takes pains to state that they don't mean to tell others what to believe, how can this be so bad?

Follow up:

Behind innocuous sentiments lie layers upon layers of justifications for injustice. Slavery was viewed as acceptable by dehumanizing slaves and counting them as another species. The same holds true with the Holocaust. I venture to guess that the folks responsible for incidents of gay-bashing don't feel, particularly at the time, that they are behaving "wrongly". I don't mean to devalue the suffering of the Holocaust or American slavery, of course. I reference these as examples - examples of times when people felt that they were right. People did not feel that they were wrong. Many were not actively spreading blatant hate-speech. Rather, they stated what they felt to be truth. And we feel Truth as Just. That is what I mean to say. That the unfortunate reality of those things which the majority may find unjust and atrocious now were once things that people felt (and some still feel) righteous about. What we now consider evil, at one time had a presentable face. So, with organizations like The Timothy Plan, hate comes with subtlety and the guise of acceptance, tolerance, even love. The Timothy Report is intended to help people invest like good Christians. Aryan Nation folks feel that they are righteous. Anti-immigration holds together as a politically correct ideology while really having a basis in racism - just look at The (Nigh infamous) game, Border Patrol. This is all sentiment partially expanding upon my last article on Watch Your Back, Hunter. Do we really just always need an 'Other' to constitute ourselves? Just stop or hide in your house alone. Because, apparently, there will always be at least one group to hate.

That being said, what follows is a list from the "Offensive Video Games" list from The Timothy Plan - offering services they call a "moral audit", this list provides, among other things, explanations of Gay & Lesbian content, listed among things such as violence. Basically, the entire list can be read as another how-video-games-destroy-families-and-youth study. Here I will only talk about the Gay & Lesbian 'offenses' listed in their "30 Worst Offenders".

The first listed, which will be a shock to everyone, I'm sure, is Grand Theft Auto IV. Apparently, GTA IV contains "Homosexual Themes" as the main character is able to use his online dating website to solicit dates from other men "but will be turned down because he lists himself as a straight male." Quick! Turn it off! Little Billy can't know that homos exist!

Saints Row 2 appears next for the same "Homosexual Content" which manifests in the ability to customize the sh!t out of their character "in almost any way they can imagine." For heaven's sake, "you can cross dress your character and select voices to match your homosexual or transgender created player"!! And, if that weren't bad enough, "Characters like Randy the Tranny were used in marketing the game." Wow! Nothing screams LGBTQ acceptance like calling a transgender a "Tranny" in a marketing scheme.

Mass Effect appears for the new category, "Lesbian Themes" (aren't lesbians homosexual, too...?). They list this here as it can be "portrayed as opening the door to same sex relations" by giving the same sex scene with a female character for some girl on "alien [with] mostly female characteristics" action. So maybe I don't know how I feel about un-nuanced sex scenes blasted at me from more mainstream games...call me a prude. However, at the same time, hooray for inclusion! After the nigh constant bombardment of heterosex - everywhere - you turn, it's kind of nice, actually.

Bully: Scholarship Edition with those darn homo-themes. A boy kissing other boys....we're all going to hell for letting this game exist, I'm sure.

Fable II Homosexual themes like the ability for players to have gay/lesbian marriage and/or gay/lesbian sex. Huh. It's like they're portraying non-heterosexuality as something basic and human instead of deviant and twisted. The next thing you know, non-hetero kids are going to stop offing themselves in the droves from despair and isolation and then what will we do!?

Army of Two makes the shit-list for homosexual themes. I love this one the best:

Although never spoken of, undertones of homosexuality are present. Weaponry in the game can be decorated to be anything from diamond encrusted to gold plated. You share a parachute with your partner, and the riot shield system allows one player to use a shield or car door as portable cover while the other cuddles up close behind and dispenses "lead" from his "iron".

Weapon decoration!? Do the "Fab 5" comes and bedazzle up your six-guns? Honestly, what does this even mean? Yes, undertones. So, watch out girls and boys, we're gonna subliminally convert you through weapon-bedazzling, letting you share our parachutes, and helping to keep you from getting shot.

What I was talking about earlier - that I couldn't bring myself to be completely filled with venom at these folks - comes up because this particular list of "bad seeds" of games reads to me as triumph. While it is a weak-at-best triumph, it is still heartening. One woman's triumph, though, is another subtly-bigoted group's despair. Realizing, however, that the underdog is not the well-meaning bigot, means that, as it turns out, I can hate them. I will just do it with the same subtly and know that my fears have a basis founded in history while their fears are founded on hate.