Gay-inclusive "Game of Life" has homophobes' knickers in a twist

As a kid, one of my favorite games was The Game of Life — between filling my little car with blue and pink pegs, driving it over plastic bridges or mountains and, most importantly, spinning that colorful wheel (which made feel like a The Price is Right contestant) it had plenty to keep my young mind occupied.

As an adult, I've tried out various attempts to recreate the board games of my youth as computer games and it turns out that latest version of The Game of Life is quietly gay-inclusive.

The game gives you the ability to choose your character out of ten (five male and five female) options. When the time comes for you to get married, there are no limits upon who your spouse can be. (I'm not sure what I think about being able to marry someone who looks exactly like you.)

Unsurprisingly, that has the Helen Lovejoys of the world sounding the alarm.

There are no hints of sexuality in this Game of Life. You get married and when you land on a space that gets you more children, a baby magically drops into the car. Same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples are treated exactly the same way, but that has drawn the ire of the anti-gay World Net Daily, who are trumpeting the story of a woman whose 6 year-old daughter played the game as a female character who married another woman and raised four children.

According to WND, the mother posted a review of the game on the Shockwave game site complaining that she found the game inappropriate for children (because acknowledging the existence of gay people requires an early discussion about sexuality that you don't have to face when your child, say, asks were babies come from). However, since a site administrator deemed her comments as inappropriate, she decided that the site is "pushing the homosexual agenda".

A WND editor also tried to post a negative comment that had the word "homosexual" censored with asterisks. However, checking out the current reviews, there are three reviews complaining about the game being gay-inclusive, though the WND editor's review isn't there. The newest review, interestingly, seems to have "gay" censored, as well. As a side note, for all three users complaining about the game, The Game of Life is the only one that has compelled them to write a review. (Or, all their other reviews were also deleted.)

Considering the homophobic language they throw around at WND, I have to wonder if the mother's idea of a "respectful" review violated Shockwave's terms of service, which forbid members from using the site to say things that "contain expressions of hatred, bigotry (or) racism." Since (as far as I've been able to figure) Google's cache didn't capture either review, there's no way to judge.

For you Windows users, you can download a free trial of The Game of Life to sample for yourself. It's a cute adaptation with plenty of mini-games. And if you're a Shockwave.com user, why not pop in and post a review including a bit of thanks for treating gay people as just a part of Life?