It's a still from the PBS children's show "Postcards from Buster," in which an animated rabbit travels around the country visiting children and makes video postcards to send home about his experiences.
He's met children living in a trailer in Virginia, a Mormon family in Utah, a Native American family, and children from fundamentalist Christian and Muslim backgrounds. Recently he traveled to Vermont and met some kids who are raised by a lesbian couple. That episode was scheduled to air on February 2, until it was denounced by Secretary Spellings because "many parents would not want children exposed to a lesbian lifestyle."
Well, there it is, folks, the lesbian lifestyle. (As if all lesbians have the same life.) Sitting around a fire with your children and their friends and their families. Gosh, that's just terrible. My mind reels at the perversity of it all. It's obviously a vulgar and obscene program.
Years ago I worked at the gift shop at Lincoln Center. An elderly woman came up to me and said she was looking for a ballet video as a gift for her granddaughter, and could I recommend something? Well, I really don't know from ballet, but I said, "Here's a lovely Swan Lake from the Kirov." The woman frowned and said, "Doesn't the swan die in that? I don't think that's appropriate." Yes, I understand how seeing a ballerina lie down on a stage and stop dancing could be damaging to a young child.
People! What are you "protecting" your children from? Reality? You think you're doing them a favor by keeping them in the dark? Because someday your kids are going to grow up and leave your house and reality is going to come up and bite them right in the ass. Or it may even happen sooner than that. You're setting them up for a major emotional and spiritual crisis, and you're leaving them utterly unprepared for it. You think that's "protecting" them?
You don't have to approve of the "lesbian lifestyle" or anything else. It is absolutely your prerogative to tell your children you don't approve of this or that and why. But to pretend it doesn't exist is doing your family an incredible disservice. If you think that you can keep your children from "going gay" by leaving them in the dark, you're dumber than I thought you were.
Censorship at the federal level is also not the way to go. If simply showing a pair of lesbians on television, however incidentally, is tantamount to "promotion," then Murder, She Wrote promoted murder, M*A*S*H promoted war and every time someone says "Osama bin Laden" on tv they are promoting terrorism and radical Islam. (Hmm. That must be why Bush never mentions him.)
Also, here's a helpful hint to paranoid parents. Televisions can be turned off and channels can be changed. How's that for a radical concept, if you don't like what's on?
Is there some reason the radical right has to pursue fictional, asexual characters (Tinky Winky, SpongeBob and now Buster, who's guilty by association) in order to advance their ridiculous agenda? Could it be perhaps that they can't find any real gay people who resemble their evil stereotypes?
15 comments:
"People! What are you "protecting" your children from? Reality? You think you're doing them a favor by keeping them in the dark? Because someday your kids are going to grow up and leave your house and reality is going to come up and bite them right in the ass. Or it may even happen sooner than that. You're setting them up for a major emotional and spiritual crisis, and you're leaving them utterly unprepared for it. You think that's "protecting" them?"
"Also, here's a helpful hint to paranoid parents. Televisions can be turned off and channels can be changed. How's that for a radical concept, if you don't like what's on?"
Your own advice is to ignore reality by not watching that show. Jackass!!!
No, you've missed my point. *Parents* have the individual right to determine what is appropriate, and when, for their children. I might criticize their decision, but I would never say they don't have the prerogative.
But Secretary Spellings has demanded that all references in the program credits to the Department of Education be eliminated, has requested a refund of the grant money used to produce the show, and has recommended that the stations not air the episode. She is presuming to act on behalf of parents everywhere, a great many of whom will disagree with her decision. Numbnuts!!!
Based on recent elections and all the red states I am pretty sure the majority of America(which voted no on same sex marriage issues. Correct or not, this is democracy in action) agree with her completely. Jaaaaacccccckkkkkkaaaaaaassssss!!!!!!
Sorry, but IMHO, a "jackass" would be someone who'd worry that a half-hour children's program with an animated rabbit that happens to have some lesbians in the background is somehow obscene. In case there's any question about the actual content of the show, here's an interview with the producer of the show:
What is the specific nature of the content that the Secretary of Education is objecting to? What exactly happens in "Sugartime!"?
The animated character Buster Baxter meets real kids. In this episode he is in Vermont ... [he] meets kids with two moms. The moms are not central to the story, the kids are. But their family structure seems to be what has triggered the concern.
Is there any nudity in "Sugartime!"?
No.
Is there any sexual contact between the two women? Romantic contact? Do they kiss, touch, grope each other onscreen?
No, no, no, no and no.
Is the word "lesbian" or "gay" ever used in the episode?
No, no.
How about "dyke"?
No.
How do we know that the couple pictured are lesbians?
One of the kids introduces her mom and stepmom, and Buster comments that she has a lot of moms. That's pretty much it. Remember, this is a show from a kid's point of view, not an adult's.
Is "maple sugaring" actually code for some sort of sexual practice between women?
Not that we uncovered.
Is the lesbian couple married under Vermont's civil union law? Does the issue of marriage come up in the episode?
There is no mention of the women's status and marriage is not mentioned. We know from meeting and talking with them off-camera that they are in a civil union.
In the Buster theme song, Wyclef Jean sings : "He's got his camera /And he's gonna explore /All the neat things he's never done before." By showcasing a lesbian couple in this episode, is PBS promoting a homosexual agenda by implying that two women living together as domestic partners is a "neat thing" that children should "explore"?
No, we are not promoting anything. Buster visits kids whose parents are divorced, too - we're not promoting that either. Buster is exploring the neat things that kids all over this country do, and experience, and can teach each other.
As one of Bush's senior domestic policy advisors, Margaret Spellings was once interviewed on C-Span about some census data that indicated a decline in traditional family structures. She answered, "So what?" and added that, as a single mother, she understood that there were "lots of different types of family." How do you explain Ms. Spellings' shift on this issue since she assumed office as Secretary of Education on Monday?
We cannot explain, nor would we try.
What do you think is really at stake when the new Bush administration picks an issue like this to set the tone for the next four years? Is the government trying to find excuses to withdraw funding from public television? Or is this just a symbolic bone thrown to the Christian right? What do you think is going on?
It's not clear to us what this means.
You would have a problem with the show if there was a couple on that show that were outwardly anti-gay. In fact you would probably demand that the show be removed also. So where is the difference? The differnce is that it does not support the Gay communities political agenda.
I would venture to guess that this issue is simply one of many opportunities this administration will use to discredit PBS programming so they can justify cutting funding -- something that has been on their agenda for a long time.
JF
No, actually I would never support censoring anti-gay folks. I think their arguments are so baseless and so silly, that frankly I fully support giving them enough rope to hang themselves with. They more they talk, the more obvious it will be that they are ignorant bigots. Frankly, I'd go on TV myself and confront them.
To quote the president, "Bring it on!"
What would confronting them do for your cause. No matter how silly or stupid their views may be there is one train of thought and argument that frankly even the most astute and eloquent Gay speaker could not counter. Ask yourself this: Genetically speaking(without the religious argument) what is our purpose on this planet? The awnser is to reproduce. This rule applies to all things. Two Gay men (or women) cannot copulate and produce that outcome therefore homosexuality is not a natural thing. Nature would not intentionally create something that would be a dead end on the road of evolution. Nature has created some things that do not contribute to evolution however they become extinct. So scientifically speaking homosexuality is an evolutionary mistake that ought not be endorsed by the rest of "normal" humakind. Is that a biggotted view? Yes. Is that discriminatory? Yes. Yet you would be hard pressed to counter that train of thought. That opinion is based on a Darwinian point of view. Like it or not you can't prove that homosexuality fits in with the natural order of evolution.
Pardon me, but that's an awfully silly argument. Ignoring the religious argument -- which is hard for me, since I'm a devout Christian -- I think you take an exceptionally narrow view of the natural world.
Look at the food chain, for one thing. Look at the important role even worms and bacteria play in recycling natural matter. Or the symbiotic relationship between clownfish and anemones. Or the way plants recycle our carbon dioxide and convert it into oxygen. I see the world as extremely interconnected, and to say that our only reason for being here is to reproduce is bizarre and depressing.
Secondly, gay people don't need gay people to reproduce. Straight people keep breeding them for us. We don't seem to be dying off. If it's genetic, then it's like left-handedness. So there goes that theory. Additionally...how can something that occurs naturally not be natural? I mean, you enter a whole other argument if you point out that non-human animals have gay sex, but animals are, in fact, natural, and they have same-sex encounters.
There's even a pair of penguins in the Central Park Zoo in a long-term committed relationship raising a chick that was abandoned by its mother. See here:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4352011/
And then you wrote, "So scientifically speaking homosexuality is an evolutionary mistake that ought not be endorsed by the rest of "normal" humakind."
That's just weird. And frankly, many of the people who are most vehemently opposed to homosexuality don't endorse evolution. Good luck with that argument.
And finally...you mean to imply that because we are, somehow, in your scientific opinion, a biological mistake, that we are not entitled to the same kinds of rights as heterosexuals?
What about people with birth defects? Or, more importantly, what about sterile heterosexuals? There are a variety of reasons that one could become sterile or could be born that way. You would propose that sterile heterosexuals, who obviously can't contribute to "evolution," shouldn't be allowed to marry? Or whatever other rights?
And if we are a "biological mistake," then why the fear that we'll convert children to the "gay lifestyle"?
It doesn't take an eloquent or particularly astute person to dismantle your arguments, just someone whose given it more than five minutes of thought. Sheesh.
I have a quick question. Do you know who you are? 1. You are Gay. 2. A devout Christian. 3. Anti-Republican.(or at least anti-Bush). You are e member of a group(devout Christians) that campaings against the Gay movement. A devout Christian homosexual is a complete paradox. You are a devout Christian who espouses Liberalism when devout Christians across America campaing against Liberals. Another paradox! Did you recieve enough attention as a child? It seems like you have gone out of your way to seperate yourself from any crowd so you could always be the victim and have some sort of great dilema to put yourself at the overly dramatic center of attention. Maybee instead of updating your blog everyday with whats happening in Middle Earth you should seek help and figure out who you really are. I can recomend a few doctors that would love to have you as their patient. They could come up with a new psychosis and write a book!
No, my friend, the paradox is "Christian" bigotry.
So how do you reconcile those three? Seems to be a prett impossible task.
You seem to have a narrow understanding of what it means to be Christian. In our current media world, I can't blame you. (And as a Christian, I can't blame you anyway, it's verboten.) Anyway, this is a topic worthy of its own post, but I'll address it briefly.
First, there are many, many gay Christians, and many heterosexuals who see no sin in it. One entire denomination, the Metropolitan Community Church, is basically run by gay people. (I am an Episcopalian; you might remember we confirmed a gay bishop last summer.) Also, almost every major branch has a support organization for gay members: Catholics have Dignity, Espicopalians have Integrity, Southern Baptists have Honesty, Mormons have Affirmation and Eastern Orthodox have Axios. Those are just a few. So you see, I'm not such a rare beast.
You seem to be most familiar with the extreme right-wing fundamentalist version of Christianity; they get the most press because they have the loudest voices. (The rest of us tend to believe that dignity and humility are virtues.) But Christianity is not just about abortion and homosexuality. Christianity is about social justice, assisting the poor, protecting the environment, and ending war.
Millions upon millions of Christians believe the only way to understand the Bible is to interpret it; that is why Christ only spoke to us in parables, so that we would learn to find the hidden meanings. Fundamentalists are only able to take things on a literal basis. Additionally, most Fundamentalists have a bizarre fidelity to Old Testament Scripture that Christ overturned. Many of them believe in the old "eye for an eye" way of life, and fail to accept that Christ commanded us to turn the other cheek, and to love our enemy.
There is a verse -- just one -- in Leviticus that says homosexuality is an abomination. However, the Fundamentalists have utterly neglected that entire book. They eat pork and shellfish, they wear cotton-poylester blends, they allow women in church when they're menstruating, and they don't wander through the streets unkempt shouting "unclean! unclean!" when they have infectious skin diseases; all of that is mandated by Leviticus. The only rule they want to enforce is the one about homosexuality; the one rule that has no effect on their own lives at all. How charitable of them.
There is another verse in Romans that seems to condemn something termed "against natural use," but as homosexuality occurs in nature I can't really figure out what it's supposed to mean. Finally, there's the whole Sodom and Gomorrah story, but if you go back to Genesis and read the entire bit, it's a very bizarre episode, and different Bibles use different words to describe what happened because scholars don't agree. It's preposterous to think that every man in an entire city could be homosexual; that just defies logic. Secondly, the heterosexuals in the story don't behave very well, either. (Lot offers his two virgin daughters to the crowd if they'll go away. Nice morals, Lot.) Thirdly, in all later references to Sodom by the Hebrew prophets, there is no mention of homosexuality. And in Christ's one mention of it, he actually says that at Judgment Day it will go better for the residents of Sodom than for people who refuse to hear the word of the Lord. I can think of some Christians who just refuse to see what the Bible actually says, so I pray for them.
As for the political spectrum, no one party represents the true interests of the Church. Almost every major Christian leader has condemned Bush’s war in Iraq.
And finally, as a Christian, I have a daily dialogue with God. No, I don’t mean to say that God “speaks” to me, but I pray, and I meditate, and I read the Bible, and at times I feel that I reach certain understandings on various issues. This is what it means to have faith, and this is why you pray. And I feel that I have learned that God is a God of love, infinite compassion, and infinite wisdom. He made me this way; why, I do not know, but I really had no choice in the matter. He did not create me to be condemned for all eternity for who I am; He did not create me to force me to live a life where my choice was celibacy and solitude or damnation. He brought me into this world and endowed me with special characteristics, and I intend to honor those gifts.
Thank you for your question.
Andy,
The verse in Romans 1:27 is quite clear, especially when read along with the verse before it. Romans 1:26, 27 - For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27) And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.
And Jude refers to Sodom and Gomorrah going after strange flesh - Jude 1:7 “Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” What do you think “strange flesh” means here?
Just because you find some animal in nature that appears to have homosexual traits, it is a small minority and so is not the “natural” behavior of that animal. You can call yourself devout (yet say you have humility, how odd), say you pray to God and read the Bible, but you cannot justify homosexuality using the Bible. And I really wonder about the devout part. Even Paul referred to himself with “Wretched man that I am.” The more I read the Bible, the more depraved I see my natural self.
You say that you don’t judge, yet you call someone a twit (one of your later posts). You also judge Lot, but the Bible calls him “just” - 2 Peter 2:7, And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. And please don’t say the word “just” means only. You know his two daughters were also spared.
Amigo
Well, I guess we just have to agree to disagree on this one, because I know in my heart there's nothing wrong with me and nothing offensive to God. I would agree that there is sin involved with certain kinds of sexual behavior; not the act itself, but the way people use it for power, for lust, for money, etc.
But homosexuality is not about those things. I have an emotional connection with other gay men. It is entirely possible for same-sex couples to have a deeply committed, deeply spiritual relationship founded in the truest, eternal love. God knows what is in our hearts and He will deal with us fairly. I have no worries.
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