The Patriot Post® · Rewriting Anne of Green Gables

Back in 1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery published what would become one of the most popular books for kids in the last century. Its heroine was an 11-year-old orphan girl adopted by a brother and sister on Prince Edward Island, Canada. Over the years the beloved story has been turned into several movie and TV adaptations, with the latest series entitled “Anne with an E” released on Netflix last year. Netflix recently released the second season of the show, and it is painfully apparent that the current rendition is promoting what has become almost obligatory for all TV shows these days — the mantra that “homosexuality is good.”

In one of the episodes in season two, Anne, her friend Diana Berry, and a boy named Cole attend a gathering at Diana’s great-aunt Josephine’s home, where a party of cross-dressing men and women have gathered to honor the memory of Josephine’s departed “partner,” Gertrude. BreakingPoint’s Eric Metaxas further describes the scene:

Looking around her, Anne exclaims to Diana, “Isn’t this the most amazing group of people!” Well, I can’t help thinking that if a sheltered young girl like Anne actually encountered cross-dressing men and women in 1908, she would be shocked and probably frightened — not delighted.

In a scene that takes place in Aunt Josephine’s bedroom, Anne observes a novel on Josephine’s nightstand. Gertrude was reading it the year before. Josephine tells her the books “sit just where she left them.” Anne processes this remark, and then, enlightened, says, “That’s what you meant by, in your way, you were married,” she says.

“Yes,” Josephine replies.

Diana — who is nonplussed by her discovery of her aunt’s relationship with Gertrude, tells Anne their love affair was “unnatural.”

But the boy Cole — a character who is invented for the TV series — soon straightens her out. “If your aunt lived her life feeling … that she was broken, defective, or unnatural, and one day she met someone that made her realize that wasn’t true …. shouldn’t we be happy for her?”

Cole later confesses to Aunt Josephine that he thinks he is “like you and Gertrude.” Josephine tells him, “You have a life of such joy before you.”

The cultural appropriation of classic stories whose authors never would have dreamed of advocating for what at the time was rightly viewed as vile and deviant behavior has become not only commonplace but even obligatory. Putting this agenda into emotive stories with characters we love is full on entertainment as indoctrination, and it’s a powerful elixir for adults — never mind children. But full acceptance, promotion, and celebration of the “LGBT identity” and lifestyle is fast becoming the only permissible opinions for individuals to hold. Anything less may one day literally become a crime.