Tacking on adult themes and theories to children’s characters is nothing recent. We’ve all heard the theories on Sesame Street’s Burt and Ernie. I remember hearing that topic back in junior high. We laughed, we saw the parallels, but we didn’t care - nobody cared - after all, it’s just Sesame Street.

Recently, however, attacks on a similar plain have increased. Namely the attack on Spongebob Squarepants - and this goes beyond stealing from Burger King.

The accusation is, of course, that Spongebob promotes homosexuality. Nowhere in the cartoon does any character confess to being gay or even make suggestions towards homosexuality, but leave it to a bunch of bored adults to read in too far and start to raise a stink.

Recently on MSNBC’s Countdown show, host Keith Olberman has been sticking up for Spongebob and the likes. Why? Because he gets it…he gets that they’re just cartoons!

Of course, leave it to the religious nuts to put cartoon characters on a stake and roast them. As reported by Keith, a religious group claims that Spongebob promotes tolerance towards gays. Hardcore whack jobs attacking simple things is nothing new, you almost expect and, much like in junior high, you blow it off because they’re the outspoken minority.

This time, however, it goes beyond the world of outspoken religion and enters the realm of government, which should be void of all religion - at least as of the last time I read the Constitution. (But give our president a chance and he’ll change that too.)

Also as reported by Countdown, a new Secretary of Education in the current administration is flaming another kid’s show that seemingly promotes the gay lifestyle. The show on in the crosshairs is “Postcards from Buster”. This show has a boy rabbit that goes around the world learning about different cultures, languages, etc. Only in one episode Buster meets another kid that has two moms. Uh oh, we can’t have that!

If the show is supposed to expose kids to difference lifestyles in different parts of the world (and our own), then showing same-sex parents in a household is right on target, because guess what? They exist. Whether you like it or not they’re out there and that’s what the real world is made of and that’s what our kids will be seeing.

Now, I couldn’t care less whether citizens agree with this charge, they can do what they want. But the government cannot. Because of this what this one government official claims, I am assuming the entire administration follows the same agenda of hate. (Frankly, considering the current administration I believe it.) Point is the government shouldn’t be able to make such a case, let alone enforce anything upon it.

We’re billed as a tolerant nation with our arms open to everyone. Here the Secretary of Education is promoting anti-tolerance?

Let’s step back a moment - a moment in time - and go to our favorite street, Sesame Street. Sesame Street is of course the definitive children’s show and has always promoted the exposure of different cultures. Gordon, Maria, Luis, Mr. Hooper, the orange-skinned construction worker - need I go on? It’s all about seeing what other people are like and letting children know that people that don’t necessary look or act like them are people just like them.

Why didn’t government step in and say “you’re gonna have to kick off Maria because she’s a Latino.” Or “how about getting rid of Gordon because he’s black?” Or that deaf lady, because, heck, she can’t even hear! See how stupid that sounds? And that’s just as stupid as trying to restrict children’s programming because they take an unbiased view of same-sex parenting and lifestyles. When did it become wrong to teach tolerance to children?

If we’re not careful, our “quality” children’s programming will be reduced to a bunch of white people going to church on Sunday with the girl learning how to vacuum and iron while the boy learns how sit by idly watching the girl play with her baby doll.

Religion has no place in government decision making. If this type of ruling is allowed, then it is pretty much the worst type of oppression there is. The government seems to be trying to take the low road by starting with cartoons since this type of programming is lower on the food chain.

We need to defend our cartoons. This is just the beginning, I fear, and although our power over the government (this time) seems to be pretty weak, all we can do is stick up and protect the shows we like, we grew up on, and the ones that our kids will grow up on.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 1st, 2005 at 12:00 am and is filed under All. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.