All Left: NPR Publicizes Gay-Bert-and-Ernie Petition Lightly With Jokes from Lesbian Comedian, Time TV Critic
Openly lesbian NPR arts reporter Neda Ulaby was given the assignment of making light news out of the gay-activism petition to get the Muppet characters Ernie and Bert married on "Sesame Street" on Friday night's All Things Considered. Her only sources for comment were a lesbian comedian and a liberal Time magazine TV critic.
She did not interview the petition's author Lair Scott, who proclaimed: “I started this Change.org petition because I believe we need more media representation of gay and lesbian people in children’s programming,” said Scott. “There are currently no LGBT characters on Sesame Street, nor in any children’s television program.”
NPR somehow couldn't find one American expert (or even citizen on the street) to express that "LGBT characters" are hardly essential to children's television. Instead, Time's James Poniewozik joshed that Bert needs a better man than Ernie:
MELISSA BLOCK, anchor: Now, news from the world of children's television. It's official. The most beloved pair of bachelors on TV are not gay...This week, thousands of people signed an online petition asking for "Sesame Street's" Bert and Ernie to get married, but as NPR's Neda Ulaby reports, PBS has released a statement that says the two are best friends -- no more, no less.
NEDA ULABY: The statement was very sweet. It says Bert and Ernie were created to teach preschoolers you can be good friends with people who are very different from you....
JAMES PONIEWOZIK: Honestly, my first reaction to this was that I was glad that they're not making Bert and Ernie a married couple because, frankly, I think Bert can do better.
ULABY: That's Time magazine's TV critic, James Poniewozik.
PONIEWOZIK: Ernie is kind of a jerk to Bert. You know, he tricks him, he lies to him, he steals his pizza. It's not, you know, a loving, adult relationship to me, frankly.
BERT: Ah, Ernie.
PONIEWOZIK: Bert deserves, you know, a nice man who's going to treat him right.
The lesbian comedian wanted Bert and Ernie just to be gay activists:
KATE CLINTON: Somewhere, Jim Henson is laughing, just laughing.
ULABY: Kate Clinton is a lesbian comedian. She says, if we're going to go ahead and project things onto hand puppets, she's going to project Bert and Ernie as being so radical, they're standing up for gay people's freedom to not get married.
CLINTON: You know, like in New York, people are like, before they even say hello, they're like, "are you getting married?" You're like, could you back up?
ULABY: See, this is an important lesson for children. Don't pressure gay people to get married. Obviously, public television needs to tread carefully politically, says James Poniewozik, given its um, history. The network that brought us Tinky Winky also said in its statement that puppets do not have sexual orientation, which as James Poniewozik points out, does not exactly stand up to scrutiny.
PONIEWOZIK: Elmo has a mom, obviously, which does sort of raise the philosophical and biological question of little muppets needing to come from somewhere.
ULABY: But some mysteries are best left unplumbed. The real shame, says Poniewozik, is that parents like him who watch "Sesame Street" with their kids will now be denied that little frisson of, are they or not?
Only liberals get a "frisson" out of wondering if Bert and Ernie might have latent homosexual tendencies.
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Comments
Jeez...........these fools
Submitted by killa37 on Sat, 08/13/2011 - 10:38pm.
Jeez...........these fools are talking about some muppets like they are 'real' people.............this is beyond delusional!!! And doesn't this gal have a real job or something??? She's got a lot of time on her hands to go around trying to pump up a marraige of two muppets in order for our children to become more 'accepting' of some minority life-style??? Give me a friggin' break!!!
I don't care about people's sexuality...........I do care about their agenda.........and this is lame, irrelevant, and not even in the ballpark as far as important issues go.
Agenda
Submitted by Makdaknife on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 5:14pm.
The gay marriage agenda is it opens the door into the primary and middle schools programs in service of both sexualizing the children while at the same time pushing the age of consent lower and lower.....and of course pushing sexual perversion in children's programs to outrage the normals is always fun, right?
Part of the problem with
Submitted by redfish on Sat, 08/13/2011 - 11:54pm.
Part of the problem with modern views on sexuality is that every personal relationship is analyzed in sexual terms.
100 years ago, men who were close would have kissed each other on the cheek and shared beds together. That's one of the reason Abraham Lincoln is claimed to be gay by progressive academics, because he bunked with another man. President Buchanan is believed to be gay because he talked about "courting" men and he spent time alone with his close friend, even though there's plenty of evidence he fancied after women. Men showered naked together, as did women. All of these things today are generally taboo. Today, men more than women, but both genders, would be afraid doing these things would make them "gay".
People didn't believe such a thing as "sexual orientation" existed. It was considered a given that many people, including otherwise straight people, would have certain temptations that went against what would be considered proper.
The view of sexuality as a biological need, rather than emotional inclination, is the cause of these dumb cultural controversies.
Well at least she interviewed
Submitted by LAM SON 719 on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 1:28am.
Well at least she interviewed someone, usually it's "experts say" or "most americans".
Future discussion within the
Submitted by ant on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 4:00am.
Future discussion within the 'Socialist re-education and Muslim sensitivity camp', USA...
"Mommy, why didn't you do anything when my future and the wealth and freedom of the former USA were being deliberatley destroyed."
"Well, honey, I was making sure two puppets in an imaginary world on a government-funded program were fairly over-representing 2% of the population."
"Thanks, mommy."
statcorrection
Submitted by Makdaknife on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 5:16pm.
One %.
Geeez!
Submitted by vaboxrboy on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 5:11am.
These were a couple of cooks who made a Facebook page and somehow it took off. No one in the gay community wants such issues to be broached on Sesame Street, seriously. It was a goofy story and got the goofy treatment it deserved- well actually, it didn't deserve any treatment but in the 24/7 news cycle...
Friendship
Submitted by Makdaknife on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 5:18pm.
One of the problems with the sexual deviants is they don't perceive "friendship" as a concept or a valid relationship....it's always all about the perversion.
Everything is debased...
Submitted by Fenwick on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 9:02am.
I suppose people could call be old-fashioned, square and naive... but why does every blasted thing in the world have to have some sexual connotation? As someone who has always enjoyed animation, comic strips, puppetry and all other sorts of entertainment typically geared toward children, I actually enjoy the innocence of it all. The incessant need to make everything "sexual" is what most disgusts me about the whole gay agenda. There are higher, nobler, more honorable thoughts on which we should focus.
"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."
try living in Boston,
Submitted by agingcynic on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 12:52pm.
the editorial board of the Globe is largely gay and lesbian. "The love that dare not speak its name" can't seem to shut up in my town. Every news item is treated as it relates to the GLBT community, even sports. The only thing left unsexualized is the weather, which they blame on Bush anyhow.
Well, if the weather is nice,
Submitted by killa37 on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 2:25pm.
Well, if the weather is nice, they could promote some fun GLBT picnics..........and if it's crummy, they could endorse some exciting GLBT indoor games........
Shame
Submitted by Makdaknife on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 5:27pm.
The LGBLT shame is unrelenting.
True...........and I've got
Submitted by killa37 on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 5:32pm.
True...........and I've got my own word for people like this: 'resentless'.................as in, I resent the fact that they are so relentless.
You know the type.........
The Deviants Dance
Submitted by Makdaknife on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 5:20pm.
Sexual deviants don't perceive "friendship" as a concept or a valid relationship....it's always all about the perversion.
LGBT You Later
Submitted by Motormouth KOS on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 1:26pm.
Can't you please just go away? This dope's comment...
“I started this Change.org petition because I believe we need more media representation of gay and lesbian people in children’s programming,” said Scott. “There are currently no LGBT characters on Sesame Street, nor in any children’s television program.”
So what? Can we at least wait until the children have some sense of sexuality before they consider the alternative lifestyles? Or would these clowns rater that we start the "teaching" at birth?
The Obamination... A crisis leading to a catastrophe..(please donate to MRC)
goal
Submitted by Makdaknife on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 5:08pm.
The longterm goal of the deviants is to push the age of consent lower and lower....as legalized "gay marriage" gives the deviants access to school programs in the primary and secondary schools.
Bertandernie
Submitted by Makdaknife on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 5:05pm.
This is just another symptom of the disorder...once we have a cure these kinds of offenses will fade away.