Change.org Petition Demands Legal Gay Marriage For Ernie and Bert

[Cid Silverwing]

Heterosexual life partners. LOOK IT UP.

Wtf has this got to do with Sesame Street anyway? It's horrible enough when the show outlives its actors and they have to be REALLY CAREFUL about letting it out to the public (rather than putting the character on a bus like dickwads).

 

[Therumancer]

My thoughts on the subject are pretty straightforward.

This is children's entertainment, directed at pre-sexual human beings. There are no "Gay, Lesbian, or Bi" kids committing suicide over a lack of rolemodels, because kids do not have these kinds of insticts yet. This is incidently part of what makes child predators so horrific... the nature of their target.

Sexual drives and orientation develop later during this thing called "puberty" and don't appear fully formed all at once. By that point people are done with things like Seseme Street, and the tween/teen media has already been handling these issues, there have been a number of high school dramas dealing with the issue of homosexuality. Heck, even "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" tackled the subject.

To be honest I'd question the motivations of anyone who wants to insert sexuality and so on into the programming of the pre-sexual. The whole "hey, let's have Burt and Ernie be a gay couple" strikes me as being something a group like NAMBLA would want as an "indoctrination" tool more than anything reasonable.

My overall attitudes about gay rights aside, this is taking things too far. We're dealing with an audience that feels the other gender has "cooties"... for crying out loud.

 

[Fbuh]

Are we forgetting that this is a children's television show? Is society really so cynical as to demand that every aspect of itself is one thing or another?

 

[xdom125x]

OH NOES. EVERYBODY PANIC! TEH SLASH FANBASE MADE A PETITION!!1!1!!!1
Okay, but in all seriousness:

Really, this petition is nothing to be concerned about, but for the sake of discussion:

I always assumed they were just best friends and behave as young children believe best friends behave (being practically inseperable). Okay, my memory of the Sesame Street characters' relationships is a little rusty so they might be related or something.

If people are so desperate to have gay characters on Sesame Street, they should be petitioning to have a new character introduced who happens to be gay. And they should probably not make that character being gay be his or her defining quality.

Also, (just for curiosity's sake):

"We are not asking that Sesame Street do anything crude or disrespectful. Only that they allow Bert & Ernie to marry or even add a transgender character to the show. It can be done in a tasteful way. Let us teach tolerance of those that are different."

Doesn't Sesame Street already do episodes about tolerance and accepting people and their differences? Wouldn't that pretty much cover this point?

 

[SmilingKitsune]

As much as I am in favour of their cause, I do not think Bert and Ernie are homosexual, nor do I think that sexuality has ever been relevant to Sesame Street.

 

[ProjectTrinity]

And the best way to prove your point is to force it down someone's throat! It's been going well since the beginning of civilization, after all!

Not-so-good-snip=

=Good Snip=

God there isn't enough love someone can give you for this post. Bravo. <3

 

[Killclaw Kilrathi]

I think most of the GLBT community is irritated with this whole thing as well. I don't know who came up with this campaign but it just makes us look stupid, I'd sign a "Leave Bert and Ernie alone" petition. There's a proper time and place for everything, and seriously altering two long running characters in a kids show is neither. I watched Sesame Street when I was a kid and I always saw them as close friends, making them gay would ruin their characters.

 

[Mr Pantomime]

Rule 34 is true after all.

 

[Treaos Serrare]

Maybe I'm just really old or maybe I'm Misremembering but when I was Little I distinctly remember Bert and Ernie Being BROTHERS

 

[duchaked]

sure you'd want a kids show to teach and encourage kindness, acceptance, tolerance, friendship...though in this case it's maybe in that range, but it's still wholly sexual. lol think Sesame Street would like to avoid talking about the birds and the bees (of any orientation)

 

[Merkavar]

i never saw them as gay. i assumed they were good friends or maybe even brothers.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Do people realize that petitions have no weight to them unless they are directed toward government programs (under specific conditions), or if the effected party has signed an agreement to abide by the petition if enough signatures are gathered?
Petitions against TV stations are a waste of time, especially something like this. Sesame Street is run by corporate funding, the donators of which will not risk something this controversial on a children's program.

 

[Mouse One]

Maybe I'm just really old or maybe I'm Misremembering but when I was Little I distinctly remember Bert and Ernie Being BROTHERS

Yeah, that's what I remember, too. But anyway, even though they live on their own, they really are just kids. I could see a gay human couple on sesame street someday, but the puppets don't really do romance (aside from the aliens on planet Koozbane (sp?) who mate by running at each other really fast then exploding)

 

[orangeban]

homosexuality is too advanced of a topic to discuss with a 4-6 year old child. Normal sexuality (heterosexuality) alone isn't even appropriate for a teaching tool. Let's (by that I mean parents...the media has no business pushing it) wait until about 8-10 years old to teach homosexual awareness. Otherwise this pushes an agenda that doesn't need to be pushed. Basically-Let's have the child discover it for themselves, and if they have questions ask their parents.

Okay, right, why is sexuality advanced for a 4-6 year old child? I mean, I understood it at that age, even if it was just the fact that boys and girls were meant to like each other, for some reason. Teaching sexuality doens't mean educating on the intricacies of sex, it's about explaining that people find each other attractive and want to spend the rest of their life together and they hold hands ect. ect.
And in order to live in a free and fair society if we explain sexuality we need to make it un-discriminatory. Kids should learn that men can like men, women can like women, men can like women, vice versa. Heck, I'd be in for explaining that you can like more than one person, but my rants about our monogamous society can wait for another day I guess.

Also, you said the magic word, agenda. Though your comment is ambigous as to wether you are specifically talking about homosexuality, or sexuality as a whole. Either way it's a bit weird, what agenda is it? The agenda for educating children about love and relationships?

 

[orangeban]

"Living in the same bedroom and the same home would make anyone question their sexuality."

WHAT?! I shared a room with a buddy of mine for 2 years. I never questioned my sexuality; I am very comfortably straight. What the hell is wrong with these people? Bert and Ernie are neither straight nor gay; they are PUPPETS MEANT TO TEACH CHILDREN.

Adding a transgendered person to the show? How would you execute that tastefully? If you just hint at it, no kid's gonna pick up the subtlety, (what 2 year old knows what a transgendered person even is?) and if you come out with it blatantly ("Im not a boy or a girl!" or showing genitalia or something, I don't even know) you've thrown class out the window.

People need to relax. Kids are already becoming oversexualized as it is. They don't need sex ed when they're 2.

I reckon' the best way to show transgenderism is to do something like Birdo from super mario bros (Japanese version) which said that Birdo was a boy who wanted to be a girl and wanted to be called Birdetta. There we go, noice and simple-loike, but enough to explain to children that these people actually exist and if you get the feeling you aren't happy with your gender then you aren't some freak.

 

[PunkRex]

"Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves," the statement said. "Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics... they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation."

Thats just lazy characterisation.

Its not right to force the creator/owner of a character to make them do anything as its their character, but then again Bert and Ernie are WELL gay.

 

[Angry Camel]

What part of Sesame Street has ever been made to deal with sexual orientation? And why should any part of it be? It's a show for little kids, for goodness sakes. They shouldn't be hearing anything about this kinda stuff yet.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Why do make such an issue of being 'gay'? I thought gay people wanted to be treated equal and accepted in society as the norm. So why are there people going out of their way to label everything game. Game characters, movies characters and now Sesame street? If being gay is so normal, as gay people state, why the need to constantly draw attention to that part of you as if its a label? True acceptence means no one cares and no one draws attention to it - because its the norm. Some of these people annoy me because they act like vegan or vegitarians, costantly bringing it up as if it makes them something special. It doesnt. So you date the same sex - no one cares. Get over it and live your life. There is more to you than who you are sleeping with or live with.

As for Bert and Ernie, theyve been around forever. At the time Sesame Street first aired, many male characters shared a room. Comedy double acts and even Batman and Robin. No one read anymore into it that two men sharing a room. Its only now days society that see one thing and label it something else. Also why label them gay? Why is that important to their characters? They are two characters that have been loved by kids for years who have enjoyed their antics. What would them being gay add to them? Isnt it more important they be loved for who they are than for a label?

 

[Trilliandi]

Okay, um... after of course laughing at the fact that this is actually happening, one must wonder if they thought that this petition was ever going to fly? I mean, gamers all know how parents get pissy over sensative subjects being exposed to kids. Anyone wanna wager what'll spring from suddenly having little children be taught life lessons by two homosexual puppets?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwVyXgbaXHs&feature=related

Something like that.

Also, I'm just, gonna throw this out there as someone who has friends in both lifestyles. Why, in part of suggesting that those two marry, did they also suggest adding a Transgendered character? Those... those are NOT... the same thing. Not by a long shot.

 

[TheRundownRabbit]

"Okay now that gay marriage is legal in New York.....lets try to make Burt and Ernie gay!"

Really? Y'know, there had to be someone who had already thought this out before it was legalized saying "When it becomes legalized, I'm gonna push towards making Bert and Ernie gay."