An Evangelical leader in the U.S. has criticised the Star Wars franchise for allowing gay relationships to be depicted in its latest video game spin-off.
The Family Research Council's Tony Perkins (pictured), claims that the characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic will expose children to a "Star Warped way of thinking."
Perkins – a
former Republican Louisiana State representative – has headed the FRC since 2003 and is known for outspoken staunch opinions against homosexuality.
"Bioware, the company that developed the game, said it’s launching a same-sex romance component to satisfy some complaints," Perkins said on Friday.
"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," he said.
“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!”
But the debate is nothing new. Discussions about gay characters in the game has been on-going, with a forum thread about the subject recently being closed down after emotive postings flooded it.
However, the software company did release an official statement saying that they always intended to add homosexuality as a feature in the game - but as a follow-up.
"Due to the design constraints of a fully voiced MMO of this scale and size, many choices had to be made as to the launch and post-launch feature set.
"Same gender romances with companion characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic will be a post-launch feature. 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."
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