The Christian watchdog group One Million Moms has slammed Highlights magazine, a monthly publication for children ages 6 to 12, for deciding to feature same-sex couples and making it appear as if having two moms or two dads is a normal way of life.
"Babies and preschoolers will soon be introduced to this sensitive topic in the Highlights line of magazines," the group wrote on its website. "Parents are seeing more examples of children being indoctrinated to same-sex families as normal, especially in the media. Children's publications are no longer off limits, even those that cater to toddlers and elementary age children."
The issue all started when a lesbian mom reportedly complained that Hello magazine did not feature any same-sex families. Hello, which targets children 0-2 years old, is published by Highlights.
For its part, Highlights explained that they believe it is up to the parents to decide when to introduce their kids to the realities of homosexuality and same-sex relationships "because it's "still new, and parents are still learning how to approach the subject with their children, even the very little ones."
But Highlights continued to receive pressure and backlash from the LGBT community. It finally caved in recently and committed to feature families with same-sex couples in future publications.
"When we do show families in the magazines, we make it a point to include diversity. We strive to be diverse in every way. The goal, however, is not to specifically call attention to diversity but instead to help kids understand that while differences exist, we are all actually more alike than different," said Highlights' Christine Cully.
"For instance, from time to time we show families headed up by a grandparent or single parents. We show adoptive families, blended families, multi-generational families, and multi-racial families. In the future, we will depict same-sex families in our magazines in a manner consistent to the way all diverse families are depicted," she continued.
However, One Million Moms isn't pleased with the magazine's decision. Many parents and grandparents opt to buy subscriptions to these magazines as gifts, and the group believes subscribing parents should be warned about the new development.
"Parents are left with no other choice than to cancel their subscription. Even if 1MM didn't disagree morally with the decision, it is not a magazines' job to introduce so called 'social issues' to children. That is a parent's role," the group said.
