Why I Hate Kirk Cameron

You’ve probably heard me reference it a few times in passing. My random, weird hatred for the obscure 80’s sitcom star, Kirk Cameron. Maybe you’ve wondered about it. Maybe you know about his politics and you think you know the reason. I do tend to fall into the liberal end of the spectrum and I disagree with him on just about everything. But generally, I don’t hate the people I disagree with. I just think they’re idiots.

If you’ve never heard him, he was in a little sitcom called Growing Pains from 1985 to 1992. He played the wise cracking, trouble making Mike Seaver on the show and I watched it every week just for him.

Back then, all my main crushes were on TV. I come from a small town. The kind of small town that’s made up of like 4 major families and everyone is related. Every time I came home, head over heals for some guy I’d just met, my mom would say the following sentence as soon as I told her his name.

“He’s your cousin.”

So all my crushes were television crushes. I had Zach on Saved by the Bell. I had Eric on Head of the Class. But above all, I had Mike Seaver on Growing Pains.

Then the fucker went and betrayed me.

In real life, Kirk Cameron isn’t the fun loving, wise cracking bad boy he was on the show. He is actually a bible toting, anti-gay, creationism preaching, bigoted moron .

And he fucked with my television.

If you watched Growing Pains, then chances are you noticed around the time Kirk Cameron hit 17, it started to suck. Like, really suck. It got kind of heavy and depressing. It wasn’t that the show was running out of ideas. Seven years is a decent run for a sitcom but it’s hardly groundbreaking. The show might have had a few more years left in it.

Then, 17 year old Kirk found Jesus. He was at a real low point in his life,  and he’d finally hit rock bottom. One day, as he was sitting on the hood of his sports car, wondering what to spend his $50,000 a week salary on, he decided the thing that was missing was religion. Over the top religion. He found Jesus.

And he decided that if he found Jesus, everyone else needed to find him too. He hijacked Growing Pains and started crossing out every storyline he considered to be too adult or inappropriate. They had to listen to him because he was the fucking show. Unfortunately, following the holy rollers changes, Mike Seaver wasn’t Mike Seaver anymore. Kirk Cameron murdered him because he was too ‘adult’ and ‘inappropriate’.

It’s not his views or his politics that make me hate Kirk Cameron. I honestly don’t give a crap.  I completely disagree with him, and it relieves me that most people disagree with him as well. What bothers me is when someone uses their position to shove their half-formed opinion down other people’s throats.

And what really bothers me is when someone ruins my television.

It was my very first experience with what complete douches actors could be. I started to doubt all my crushes. Was Zach going to decide Kelly’s mini-skirts were too short and get her thrown off Saved by the Bell? Was Eric going to burn his leather jacket and quit Head of the Class to go to parochial school? I could never trust a sitcom crush again.

In short, I hate Kirk Cameron because he ruined my ability to get aroused by 80’s sitcom bad boys. And for that, I will never forgive him.