This fall, MeTV, the channel that runs “classic” television series of the ’60s through ’80s, is featuring “The Andy Griffith Show.”

In a recent episode, Opie feels left out because Andy has been focusing so much attention on his girlfriend, Peggie. Andy has to explain that while Opie is his young-un and so will always occupy the most special place in his heart, a man needs the company of a woman -- someone he can be friends with and even take dancing.

Opie, in charming innocence, points out that Andy already has a friend: Barney. To which Andy replies, “Can you see me takin’ Barney to a dance?”

The obvious point made, Opie laughs, reassured of his Pa’s love and sharing the humor in such a preposterous idea.

I doubt a television writer could create a scene like that today. Nowadays, Opie would likely ask what Barney plans on wearing to the dance.

It’s interesting that MeTV hasn’t been pressured into editing out those revealing small-screen moments indicative of the assumptions about men and women back in our unenlightened sexual past. That would be a real challenge, because there surely are a lot of them.

For instance, “M*A*S*H” (the virtual flagship of MeTV), so well remembered for its soft-left satire and anti-war sermonizing, is filled with self-consciousness and innuendo about men whose masculinity might be questionable. This is, in fact, a recurring motif in jokes which Hawkeye plays on poor Frank Burns.

Even Corporal Klinger, who broke sartorial ground as the first cross-dressing featured character in a situation comedy, regularly insists on his manliness: “I’m all guy, Clyde. The dress is a dodge.”

The one time Klinger actually has a chance to get out of the army -- by attesting that he’s a homosexual and a transvestite -- he refuses to sign the form.

“I ain’t none of those things,” he proclaims indignantly to psychiatrist Sidney Freedman. “I’m just crazy.”

How far we’ve come. Now there’s Fox’s “Modern Family.”

Television is only one form of cultural expression, certainly, but a uniquely pervasive one -- of which MeTV and other retro outlets represent a miniscule portion. But the current wave of gay-affirming popular entertainment (supported by similarly inclined TV news reporting) reflects an intensive propaganda campaign that’s been going on for years, aimed at erasing the human certainties that were so obvious to the folks in Mayberry.

Will it succeed? I don’t think so.

Oh, the militant gay movement -- building on a theory of individual liberty cribbed from the Civil Rights movement and twisted to the limits of recognition -- has perfected a kind of judicial terrorism that’s bringing American business to its knees. We’ve got unspoken quotas for gay recruitment; we’ve got mom-and-pop enterprises closing down to avoid compromising moral scruples. In the latest twist, a city has threatened the operators of a Christian small business with criminal arrest for their principled resistance.

And, yes, there are plenty of surveys purporting to document increased public acceptance of homosexuality and so-called “gay marriage.”

This fact hit close to home within the Catholic community when it was announced that a recent poll indicated a high level of gay sympathy among young Catholics. The story broke just as our mainstream media were touting the many doctrinal “changes” expected to come from Pope Francis’ Extraordinary Synod on the Family (and isn’t that a coincidence).

The problem with all such gay-focused opinion research is the way in which the surveys are constructed. As I noted in a post on my blog last spring …

“Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how views fell out if a major polling organization presented the issue in a different way, like…

“How comfortable do you feel when two men or two women kiss in public, or when they express physical romantic affection in front of children, or when they gratify each other genitally?

I would contend that people’s attitudes haven’t changed -- not their real opinions and emotional responses, the stuff that’s hidden behind the veneer of open-mindedness and sophistication they feel they’re expected to show the world (and demonstrate to pollsters).

That’s why there’s so much pressure on the Church to get with the times. That’s why the synod’s preliminary report, a simple working paper, with all its rosy suppositions about the great gifts which gay folk might bring to Christian life, got blown way out of proportion and shouted from the media housetops.

Gay activists understand that the Church still matters, and its stamp of moral approval would be of inestimable value. If only they could get it.

After decades of cultural saturation bombing, people feel what they feel, think what they think, know what they know -- at the core.

In our hearts we all still live in Mayberry.

Bill Kassel is a writer, communications consultant, and media producer. His essays and random rants can be found online at: www.billkassel.com.