ABC Family’s ‘The Fosters’ Creators Defend 13-Year-Old Gay Male Kiss: Watch Before Judging

The creators-executive producers also discussed how they prepared the two young actors for the on-screen kiss, where Jude and Connor’s (“Jonnor”) relationship will go from here, and what it might mean to young gay viewers hoping to see their own stories reflected on screen.
TheWrap: Did the writer’s room worry about how audiences would react to the kiss?
Peter Paige: We try not write stories based on reaction. We try to write them based on character integrity as we understand it and observe it. This story is very true. >>>>>>>>>>>>Both Brad and I are gay men and it felt very true to both of our early coming out experiences.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<on tv in front of millions of disgusted viewers?
More than anything else, we felt responsibility to those kids and to our younger selves who didn’t see themselves reflected anywhere… We’ve all been watching stories about heterosexuals forever… As a gay kid you are always having to translate. You are always having to pretend like you are one of the other characters. You’re not seeing your life accurately reflected.
Bradley Bredeweg: The one conversation we had was, “Could you imagine if this show was on when we were 13, 14, 15 years old?” It’s that desire, like Peter said, to be represented and to have the audience feel like they can see themselves in at least one of the characters.
When people question the scene my response has been: “Everyone has a first kiss and you remember it. How old were you?” Ninety percent of people who have an answer come back and say, “I was 12, 13 and 14 years old,” and I say, “Exactly. It was time to see this, time to put this up for the world.” Then people understand, they’re able to wrap their heads around it.(almost commented here but - just ughhhh)