Game for 6-year-olds pushes same-sex marriage

By Drew Zahn


Lesbian “family” in online version of The Game of Life

The online version of a popular board game from many Americans’ childhood includes an option for players to choose homosexual marriage and child-rearing as a way of life.

Through the Shockwave.com website, even children can download and play a free trial version of The Game of Life, the first game ever created by Mr. Milton Bradley in 1860.

The player’s first option in the online version is to choose a persona based on pictures that clearly depict men and women. Shortly thereafter, the game invites players to choose a spouse, regardless of the potential spouse’s sex.

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One concerned mother wrote to WND about her experience with downloading the game to play with her daughter.

“You know how kids are,” the mother told WND. “My daughter noticed right away (even before I did) and clicked on one of the girls instead of one of the men and then asked, ‘Mom, how come I can marry a woman?’ And then that led into a lot more questions that, quite frankly, I was not ready to talk to my 6-year-old about.”

WND followed the mother’s example and played a game as “Jennifer,” who chose to marry another woman. The course of the game eventually added four children to WND’s lesbian couple.

The mother claims to have posted an objection on the game’s review board, only to have it removed by an administrator.

“I went back to the web site and left a very respectful review of the game just stating that this kind of thing should be left out of kids’ games, and the Shockwave.com administrator removed my post, stating it was inappropriate,” the mother told WND. “I had no idea how insidious they were being with pushing the homosexual agenda.”

WND again followed the mother’s example, posting the following comment under the screen name “newseditor1”:

“Your guidelines ask us to ‘keep your language safe for the kids,’ yet here’s a game where children may choose homosexual marriage and child-rearing,” WND wrote. “Many sections of society accept this as normative, but many also would consider this too mature a theme for children. Others would consider this downright offensive. Is it appropriate to include, for example, lesbianism in this game?”

Shortly thereafter, WND’s comment was posted, but the word “homosexual” was altered to “****sexual,” presumably because the stand-alone prefix “homo” is sometimes used in a derogatory fashion.

WND sought comment from Hasbro, the company that now owns the rights to Milton Bradley games, but received no response.

The original 1860 Milton Bradley game, known as the Checkered Game of Life, was completely redesigned in 1960, bearing almost no resemblance to the original. The new game board included the winding track, spinner and plastic buildings familiar to many.

The redesign also included car game pieces that could be filled with plastic pegs representing a player’s growing “family.” The board game did not prevent players in any way from placing two pink or two blue pegs in the front seat, thus depicting a homosexual couple.


Drew Zahn

Drew Zahn covers movies for WND as a contributing writer. A former pastor, he is the editor of seven books, including Movie-Based Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching, which sparked his ongoing love affair with film and his weekly WND column, "Popcorn and a (world)view." Drew currently serves as communications director for The Family Leader. Read more of Drew Zahn's articles here.