“FOX’s ‘Family Guy’ goes too far,” writes culture war heavyweight American Family Association Chairman Don Wildmon. In an email action alert to AFA members requesting they file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Wildmon characterized the prime-time animated comedy as a “perverted and sickening program.”

Predictably earning the scorn of social conservative groups and media decency watchdogs, FOX aired an episode of Family Guy on March 8 where Peter participates in a controversial medical trial – experimental “gay gene” therapy – to reduce his debt.

Known not for its tact or moderation on sensitive cultural issues, Family Guy played fast and loose with every LGBT stereotype and likewise with the notion of intolerant, homophobic Christians.

Ironically, social conservatives weren’t alone in their outrage. As Queerty’s Japhy Grant notes, Peter became a “mincing, prancing, fisting, orgy-loving stereotype. … [T]he episode isn’t terribly funny and while its message is that gay people should be loved just the way they are, the fact that all the gays seen walk around with their arms flailing about and speaking like Snaggletooth isn’t well, very funny.”

The episode in question, “Family Gay”, is currently ranked the 7th most popular episode of the series hosted on Hulu.

And why, little boys and girls, is this episode enjoying such high ranking? Controversy creates and sustains an audience – and shows like Family Guy and South Park thrive on their ability to walk the line between sarcastic antagonism and unacceptably crude dialogue. It is this parlor game – the ability to successfully mediate what will and won’t be canned by network censors – that has made these shows such smashing successes.

Television is an exceptionally competitive market, and as such, were there no demand for shows that push the limit – i.e. Family Guy – there would be no such shows in the first place.

The beauty of market competition, and this is apparently a foreign concept (like many truly conservative issues) to Wildmon et al, is that consumers have options. To my knowledge, FOX has no “propagators of the homosexual agenda” who tie AFA’s membership to their La-Z-Boys, tape their eyes open, and force them to watch the ‘cultural abomination’ that is Family Guy.

Also, the show airs on Sunday. Shouldn’t Rev. Wildmon be busy handling snakes or healing the lame?

For your viewing pleasure, a small clip from the show that no one has to watch: