The No Kool Aid Zone

Mind & Media Review: “Veil of Deception”

Posted by Byron May 11, 2005 at 6:34 pm
Filed Under In a Handbasket, Life as a Jesus-follower, Reviews | 1 Comment |

Review of “Veil of Deception: The Impact of Same Sex Marriage on American Youth”
Running Time: 30:16
DVD Produced by MissionAmerica

As hot topics go in American society, there are few hotter today that the subject of so-called “gay marriage”. From the perspective of homosexual advocates, the issue would seem to be a simple one of “equal rights”, with the idea being that homosexuals are being denied rights available to “straights”, in that only the state of Massachusetts, for the time being, recognizes the union of two same-sex individuals to legally unite in marriage, and there, debate rages hot and heavy as voters will soon go to the polls in back-to-back year referendums in order to, potentially, amend the state constitution to deny this “right” to homosexual couples. Conservative Christians and others reply that true “equal rights” already exist; homosexuals, we say, have the same right to marry as anyone else, and what is being sought by the gay lobby amounts to “special rights”, the right to redefine marriage according to the desires of homosexuals.

Into this fray comes this DVD offering from MissionAmerica, entitled Veil of Deception: The Impact of Same Sex Marriage on American Youth. Veil of Deception is a half-hour documentary which uses footage of demonstrations (both pro- and anti-gay-marriage), speeches (opposing), and interviews to paint a picture of the rapid advance of the gay agenda in seeking to change forever America’s perceptions about homosexuality. Of particular interest in this piece, as the subtitle would indicate, is the effort being made to inculcate new mores in the lives of impressionable children, from elementary school upward.

The video begins with pictures of wedding cake and a man tying his shoes, with the voice-over of a “preacher” announcing, “dearly beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of God to unite this man and this man in holy matrimony”, arresting our attention immediately with the bold reality of the homosexual vision for marriage of the future; this is followed by the words of Matthew 19:4-6—the only Scripture so quoted in the film. From this point on, the film is a collage of often-grainy videos and webpage stills, with several interviews interspersed, held together by the voice-over of the narrator. The audio editing leaves a lot to be desired; it seems that even in those instances where a direct interview takes place, the quality is quite uneven; have your volume control at the ready if you choose to see this DVD!

The film seems to do a better job of documenting what is taking place all across the country than it does analyzing its impact upon our young people, and given the subtitle which promises such, this is a decided weakness of the film. We are left having been “brought up to speed” on what’s taking place—a valuable service to those not inclined to keep up with the news—but there could have been more detail on how same-sex marriage will likely impact our children; this seems almost completely lacking, save for a brief interview at the end with author Linda Harvey (no relation to pundit, but great name…), who speaks of the confusion a six-year-old girl might feel growing up in a society which has embraced “gay marriage”. Harvey envisions this young lady thinking, “I might marry a guy, or I might marry a girl”—and needless to say, that’s a pretty creepy thought.

This film is appropriate for senior high students through adults; despite the subject matter, there are only a couple of references which refer to homosexual acts; these, though, make the fare a bit heavy for junior-highers. The film doesn’t seem to be geared to youth anyway so much as it is geared to parents, to sound a wake-up call. At the end, parents are given a rapid-fire list of “things to do”; these are of the very general variety, as well as a listing of websites for more information; have the “pause” ready on your remote if you seriously want to look at the websites, for the scroll is pretty fast.

Overall, Veil of Deception is a reasonably good effort, and will be helpful for those parents who have not kept up with—or considered the seriousness of—our societal movement to normalize “gay marriage”.

UVa Helmet Rating: 3 helmets (out of 5)

Special Word of Thanks!
Stacy Harp over at Mind and Media is doing a great thing here, matching up blogger/reviewers with publishers that donate all the books and DVD’s and ??? for free; I didn’t pay a dime for this nice DVD! Thanks, Stace and, in this case, MissionAmerica! I call these kinds of situations “win-win” (I don’t think that phrase is original with me, so go ahead and feel free to use it yourself…).