VeggieTales Pro-Gay Agenda?!

Evangelical Radio personality Kevin Swanson recently ignited an internet firestorm when he claimed that the Disney movie Frozen had a pro-gay agenda. He cited evidence listed on Decentfilms.com and policymic.com, including:

• Elsa was “born different” from other people. She has a special gift, or possibly a curse. This hints at the Lady Gaga song “Born this way.”
• Elsa’s difference is an occasion for fear and secrecy.
• She sings a song about not being a good girl anymore and letting it go after society rejects her.
• While Anna has romantic longings, Elsa is uninterested in boys.
• At the end of the movie, Elsa’s snow creation puts on a tiara (cross dressing! Yikes!
• Oaken the shopkeeper waves hello to his family, and in the tub, there is a man and no woman. He may be gay.

Nicely played, Kevin Swanson. You turned a tale of acceptance and love into an agenda to make children gay. And I’m not going to stand for that. I am about to explain how VeggieTales has a pro-gay agenda.

In the Veggietales film Are You My Neighbor, there are a number of pro-gay themes and moments.

• Jimmy and Jerry Gourd, though not explicitly stated, were definitely “born different” from the other vegetables. If vegetables can be born, that is.
• Though it seems obvious, Jimmy and Jerry are both males who have some kind of relationship with each other and are considered strange. Though it is stated elsewhere that they are brothers, I don’t think this is mentioned in the movie.
• Both talk in high-pitched (though not precisely “gay-sounding”) voices.
• Everyone else on the USS Applepie is afraid of them.
• They sing a song with these EXACT lyrics:

God makes lots of people in all colors shapes and sizes;
He loves them very much and what we need to realize is,
that calling people names because they’re different is wrong,
Instead we need to look on them in love and sing this song,
I can be your friend (la la la)…

Yes, Kevin Swanson, you’ve been called out by your own team. You keep calling gays “homosexuals,” which, at least to them, is an unkind name. And to your concern that you didn’t mean it that way, whether you have racist intentions or not when you use the N word, it’s still name calling to them and not loving your neighbor as yourself. Ah, trying to get people to love their neighbors as themselves, even if they’re different. That evil radical liberal agenda.

More than that, Veggietales has the nerve to tell kids that they should befriend people who are different than they are! While, again, same-sex-attracted people are not specifically named in the song, it could be argued that they are implied (because, well, they’re different).

It only gets more disturbing from here:

I can be your friend
I can be your friend
Anyday, in any weather
We can be friends and play together

Playing with people who are different? Isn’t that what got The Fox and the Hound in such big trouble, because two animals who were different wanted to “play together” and people wouldn’t let them? Is “We can be friends and play together” a euphemism for something else? Horrors.

And that’s only one of the movies in the Veggietales franchise!

Swanson worries about bestiality in Frozen because the obviously straight Kristoff is jokingly said to have a “thing with the reindeer / That’s a little outside of nature’s laws!”

It’s cute that Swanson is concerned about that, but seriously! Veggietales has an ongoing inter-order romance between Larry the Cucumber and Petunia Rhubarb. You know, order, as in Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species. Petunia is a rhubarb, from Order Caryophyllales, and Larry is a cucumber from Order Cucurbitales. To be clear, humans are in Order Primates Class Mammalia. Other orders in class Mammalia include horses, foxes, pandas, and whales. Yes, whales. Veggietales sees absolutely no problem whatsoever with this inter-order relationship. They treat it not only as normative, but as positive.

And then you’ve got King George and the Ducky which is an obvious spoof off of David and Bathsheba, but get this: Bathsheba is a rubber ducky. Yes, it’s messed-up that King George has a whole harem – I mean, closet – full of rubber duckies, but at the end of the story, he gives Junior Asparagus his ducky back. And Junior’s relationship with the ducky is considered okay.

Of course, Are You My Neighbor is still the biggest pro-gay Veggietales movie of them all. The worst part? Veggietales doesn’t teach that “people who are different” need to change to be accepted. On the contrary, one of Jimmy and Jerry’s “differences,” their chronic eating, ends up being what saves the entire ship. That’s right, Kevin Swanson. Not only does Veggietales teach that being different is okay, they teach that these “differences” can be positive.

Watch the video for more awesome moments that could be construed as pro-gay.

But hey, at least Jimmy and Jerry were both gourds.

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Disclaimer: I have not spoken about these ideas with Big Idea, Phil Vischer, or whoever is making Veggietales nowadays. This post almost certainly reflects the opposite of their beliefs or opinions. The thoughts and opinions in this post are mine and mine alone.

Author: David M Schell

I am a doubter and a believer. I have a Master's in Divinity from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, but because faith grows and changes, I don't necessarily stand by everything I've ever written, so if you see something troubling further back, please ask! Read More. View all posts by David M Schell