GamePolitics goes “christian bashing”…ooo, look we can do it too.
In a dramatic :rolleyes: Internet moment, GamePolitics throws Christians under the bus as they attempt to highlight the “conservative christian” ties of mutual fund investment firm, The Timothy Plan, as negative.? This was obviously done after the author discovered the?firm put out a report advising their clients on video game content, including a warning on gay and lesbian content, and was miffed by this, and considered it “bashing”.
Anyone that wonders over to The Timothy Plan and spends 30 seconds looking at the site can obviously figure out that it adheres to a certain value set, and that last time I checked, in the United States people can think differently and have different value sets.?
There’s happens to be that they don’t think it’s a great idea for little kids to be playing games with massive amounts of violence, sex, and homosexual situations.? They aren’t doing anything different that the ESRB.? The ESRB is the groups logo you have plastered on your own website GamePolitics.?
So if GamePolitics supports the ESRB, and this group is essentially doing the same thing the ESRB and groups like WhatTheyPlay.com are doing, reviewing and rating games for content for parents of children who play video games, then what was the only difference?? The author was obviously miffed and took it personally that there was a content review of homosexual content.? There’s some fancy unbiased journalism.? Well done.
So in the process of throwing Christians under the bus by way of insinuating that they are “gay bashers” the author completely misses the whole point of what The Timothy Plan is trying to do.? While the reviews are completely hokey, yes, the point of the firm is to allow people to invest in mutual funds that aren’t umbrella corporations that have some sort of shady business or pornographic magazine under their belt that they would not want to be apart.? That’s fine, they are allowed to do this.? Not to mention they weren’t bothering anyone.? You seen a big shiny blinking Timothy Plan banner add anywhere?? I sure haven’t.? Didn’t get any literature in the mail either.? GamePolitics had to seek these guys out.? Laughable.
GamePolitics is a great site.? It is extremely informative and I read it every day.? That’s why it is on our blog roll.? Maybe it was a slow news day… I don’t know.? But this was a reach.? And even if you believe the reviews to be “gay bashing,” turning around and bashing Christians pretty much puts?the accusser?in the same meatspace as the doer of the deed.? Somebody needs to be checked.
-nick
“While the reviews are completely hokey, yes, the point of the firm is to allow people to invest in mutual funds that aren?t umbrella corporations that have some sort of shady business or pornographic magazine under their belt that they would not want to be apart.”
I believe if they would have done even a half-decent job of playing and reviewing these games, there wouldn’t have been an issue. Army of Two with homosexual undertones between the two lead characters? Laughable. Mass Effect with homosexuality? One of the characters in monosexual. If they can’t do the list right, then don’t do it at all.
“and that last time I checked, in the United States people can think differently and have different value sets.”
And people can have different opinions as well. If GP were to do a story on games and singled out certain games because they had a “Christian” undertone, would you write a counter-story to it? I bet the house on it. People don’t like to be singled out, whether they are homosexual, transgender, obese, a different religion, etc.
Hi Obviousness,
Thanks for the reply.
Honestly, I don’t think I would write a counter story to that. The only thing that really drove me to comment on the GP story at all was the fact that GP supports ESRB and WhatTheyPlay.com. So that means they support the parental review process. But they don’t support the Timothy Plan reviews, where the only difference is the review of homosexual content.
Ok, that’s fine, GP doesn’t think it’s fair for homosexual content to be singled out when sexual content is already reviewed. They believe that to be “gay bashing”. But their point is completely rendered unjust when they turn around and proceed to “christian bash”. That’s all I was getting at.
-nick
Here’s the comments straight from the article:
“The Timothy Plan, a Florida investment firm which bills itself as “conservative Christian,” is warning holiday-shopping parents away from what it calls the 30 “most offensive” video games.”
Now if you go to The Timothy Plan’s website, there is a tab on the left of the screen for “Biblical Stewardship”, which talks about “a powerful resource that will equip believers to understand God’s Plan for Financial Success”. To me, his comments are accurate, as it is a “Christian” Financial Planning site. As far as the “conservative” aspect of his comment, I’m under the assumption that most Christians would fall under the category of “conservative”
“In its game rankings, the organization displays an obvious anti-gay bias. While it evaluates titles for sex and nudity, a gay/lesbian rating is also included, meaning that a game with a gay sexual encounter might get a double whammy when compared to a game where the sex is of the straight variety. This effect, for instance, pushes Fable II onto the group’s most offensive list.”
GP brings up an interesting point, why do some games get hit with 2 points for having homosexuals and a sexual encounter?
Now the posts which proceed the article are individual opinions on the article itself, which would mean that GP has no responsibility to the accuracy or content of those posts. If you read GP’s disclosure, it says, “Views posted are those of the individual user and do not necessarily reflect the views of the ECA.”
I don’t see anywhere in the GP article where it is “Christian Bashing”.
I would point to the first line in which it is blatantly pointed out in quotes as a “conservative Christian” firm. To me, there is simply no reason to point this out unless you intend to draw attention to it, and have a desire to draw resentment toward not simply the qualitative assessment of reviews, but the fact that the reviews are conducted by a group promoting itself to be Christian. In that respect, it is not being unbiased toward the creed of the reviewers, but insinuating that “conservative Christians” as a group are intolerant. This seems unjust.
-nick