I grew up watching Sesame Street as a kid. One of my mom's favorite stories about me was when I was three years old, we were shopping in a K-Mart one day, and suddenly she noticed while walking around I had disappeared. She flipped into Super Panic Mode and had the customer service desk page me on the loud speakers so she could find me.
As it had turned out, I wandered off to the TV section to watch Sesame Street. I sat down on the floor and turned the channel to PBS and had a grand time minding my own business, not thinking in the slightest about what my mom was going through trying to find me. Life obviously went on, and everything was fine.
Two of my personal favorite characters on the show were Bert and Ernie. They were best friends and played off one another all the time. Sure, they weren't Grover or Oscar the Grouch, but they were still fun to watch. Over the last decade or so a recurring subject has come up involving gay and human rights groups petitioning for Bert and Ernie to become a "couple." The thinking is that having fairly iconic characters like these two would be a positive influence on children to embrace gay couples in the real world. In the last week I've read several articles online discussing the concept and how it's supposedly being pushed harder now than ever for PBS to make the change.
The subject is a sensitive one, so I'm going to do my best to refrain from being political about everything. For starters, I'm not getting into the morality of homosexual relationships at all here. That's not really the issue. What really puzzles me about this is these human rights groups are pushing PBS to suddenly evolve two characters who are Muppets. They've been part of the show for decades, and I suppose the idea is that because they're so popular already, kids would likely not think twice about them being a couple since they already know them so well.
It doesn't matter what any human rights group's logic on the subject is, really. It doesn't change the fact that we're talking about freaking Muppets here! Why are we having this discussion? Furthermore, what exactly does making Bert and Ernie gay add to them as characters? Does it make the two of them more progressive in nature? The whole idea is completely arbitrary - why specifically pick Bert and Ernie? Because they're already friends? Why not Big Bird and Snuffleuppagus? Oh wait, you're right - that'd involve an eight-foot canary and some kind of furry elephant becoming a couple. How silly.
If human rights groups really wanted to petition PBS to include a gay couple on Sesame Street, what's wrong with introducing a couple fresh to the show? Have them meet everyone else already on the show, and let everyone welcome them in with open arms. The same point is made, and would likely be even made more strongly by showing everyone treating the gay couple with respect and friendship right off the bat. Simple questions posed by the other characters on the show could help the kids better understand gay couples and their lifestyles, just as the show has done in the past with regards to subjects like racism.
I've long been on the fence about the subject of gay marriage. It doesn't affect how I conduct my life at all. When plenty of heterosexual couples already do more than enough to destroy the sanctity of marriage through cheating and physical abuse, singling out gay marriage as the nail in the coffin of the concept of family looks pretty absurd and petty. What I don't like is the idea of making an arbitrary change like coupling off Bert and Ernie in the name of educating kids when it's a completely unnecessary change.
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