Tony Perkins: Star Wars ‘surrenders to gay empire’ 
 
 By David Edwards 
 
 Friday, January 27, 2012 16:40 EDT 
 
 An evangelical leader is calling on his army of followers to take action against a software company for allowing same sex relationships to be represented in a new Star Wars video game. 
 
 Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council — a hate group, according the the Southern Poverty Law Center — took to the radio to denounce Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic, a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game. 
 
 “In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists!” Perkins announced during his daily radio commentary. “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.” 
 
 “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.” 
 
 He continued: “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!” 
 
 In a statement on their website, Bioware explained that same sex relationships were not yet possible in the game. 
 
 “Same gender romances with companion characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic will be a post-launch feature,” the company wrote. “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.” 
 
 A quick search of Bioware’s forum shows that there are probably not “300 pages of comments” on the topic — and very few if any of the commenters were “angry” about the idea. In fact, most players were more concerned that the featured had not already been released. 
 
 “[I]t does feel a bit like bioware neglected the same sex community,” a player named Romanticyde wrote. “I hope this will be fixed, in any way.” 
 
 Watch this video from Family Research Council, broadcast Jan. 27, 2012. 
 
 (H/T: Right Wing Watch) ||||| The Florida Family Association, best known for badgering companies into pulling advertising from TLC reality show All-American Muslim last year, is hard at work ranting about a new target: BioWare/EA game Star Wars: The Old Republic. This isn't the first temper tantrum that supposedly pro-family groups have thrown over The Old Republic, just the most recent. 
 
 The headline of the alarmist new missive asks: "Will the makers of Star Wars video games create Darth VaPaula, a (mock) transgender version of Darth Vader - RuPaul, for kids to choose as their action player?" The mock-up image at the top of this post comes from their website. 
 
 
 
 Everything is wrong the FFA's claims. Their insistence that BioWare is going to start gender-bending Darth Vader and warping vulnerable minds indicates a bigoted point of view and a complete misunderstanding of how video games work. Their complaint appears to have nothing to do with reality, either in the physical world or in the game they're panicking over. They insist that, "[I]f BioWare ... adds LGBT characters for kids to select as their action figure it could be something like Darth RuPaula, a combination of Darth Vader, one of the most popular Star Wars characters, and RuPaul, the renown transgender cross dresser." That has no relation to the game or to future changes proposed for it. 
 
 For those unfamiliar with the title, Star Wars: The Old Republic is a massively multiplayer online game, where players log into a virtual Star Wars-themed world and play characters they customize heavily from a number of species, appearance, class, and alignment options. All players must choose a gender — either male or female, no third options, nothing non-binary — for each character at the moment of its creation. 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 Romances in SW:TOR, as in other BioWare games, are initiated by the player at his or her choosing, from a limited selection of companion characters. At the moment, only heterosexual relationships are available, but BioWare has promised since before the game's December launch to add same-sex options in the future, which is the source of the uproar. 
 
 The FFA's argument rests on the back of the old workhorse, "Won't somebody think of the children?!" Their alert claims, in among all of the language begging readers to send e-mail to EA: 
 
 An overwhelming percentage of the 1.7 million games sold are being used by children who do not need to be introduced to this propaganda. 
 
 LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) activists are demanding that the makers of Star Wars video games add LGBT characters for kids to select as their action figure when playing the games. 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 Studies observing MMORPGs throughout the past decade have found that overall, the player's average age is in the mid-20s, and that roughly 75% are 18 or older. The game is not designed for or marketed to children, though undoubtedly a number do play; it's designed for people with credit cards, who can pay the monthly fee. 
 
 Children and teens, who never thought anyway but heterosexual, are now given a choice to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in their game player. 
 
 Children and teens, who choose non-social agenda characters, would be forced to deal with lesbian, gay, bi-sexual or transgender characters chosen by other players. 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 I am shocked to find that when I step out of the front door of my apartment into the world, or when I take my avatar and step into a shared virtual world, that I can't control the people I meet. Other people are going to have the audacity to live the lives and take on the identities that they choose, rather than the ones that I choose for them? And here I thought that by sheer force of will, I could make the rest of the world conform to my tastes and expectations alone. 
 
 It's also quite impressive that the Florida Family Association knows that only 100% heterosexual minors have ever picked up this video game! That's statistically amazing. You would think that in 1.7 million active subscribers the odds are somewhere between 50,000 and 170,000 (3-10%) are likely to identify as gay or bisexual, or even mildly curious, but no! This box apparently comes with a built-in filter meaning only straight players touch it. It's the game — not burgeoning hormones, brain chemistry, inherent identity, curiosity, attraction, or even choice, but this one game — that's going to make all the kids suddenly gay! 
 
 Just trying to reach the reality of the game-that-is, instead of the game-that-is-argued-against, is challenging enough. Under that mask, Darth Vader could have spent three films wearing the pinkest, most sparkly lipstick Imperial credits can buy, and no one would ever have known — nor would it have mattered. In the world the FFA lives in, the existence of a same-sex partnership option for the small percentage of players who choose to pursue it magically invalidates all other available choices or paths, and somehow even starts overwriting gender identities. 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 Whether or not any particular group accepts it, queer folk and their allies are gamers too. Sometimes, people choose romances in games just to see what happens, what with games being an essentially consequence-free virtual world. And I refuse to believe that a significant portion of players who choose f/f pairings in games aren't straight men. 
 
 In short, the FFA's values certainly are drawn from a long time ago, but the reality they inhabit doesn't seem to be in this galaxy, or even in one far, far away. Realistically speaking, the Florida Family Association is one very determined man, David Caton, who has an opinion he's determined to bully the world into hearing. And that opinion is about a very strange game in his head alone, not one that actually exists. 
 
 Will the makers of Star Wars video games create Darth VaPaula, a (mock) transgender version of Darth Vader - RuPaul, for kids to choose as their action player? [Florida Family Association, via Kill Screen]
– In a galaxy not far enough away... an evangelical is criticizing the gay and lesbian relationships in a Star Wars video game, Raw Story reports. Tony Perkins, who leads the Family Research Council, wrote a post condemning Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic: "In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists! ... Star Wars gamers have already gone to the dark side" by adding "a special feature: gay relationships.” Perkins claims that some 300 posts are on the game's website, "a lot of them expressing anger that their kids will be exposed to this Star Warped way of thinking." But Raw Story couldn't find 300, and saw few if any angry ones. (One gamer wanted the option of bisexual characters "for those of us who want a lot of action.") Bioware notes that gay and lesbian relationships aren't currently in the massively multiplayer online game, but will be with future content expansions.