Posted on 02/05/2005 9:07:25 AM PST by Ellesu
For adults, the fuss over a PBS children's television show featuring an animated bunny - and real lesbian mothers - was nothing new. But for Emma Riesner, 11, who was supposed to be a star of the now-controversial episode of "Postcards From Buster," what began as a participatory social studies lesson has become a harsh lesson in exclusionary politics.
"I was pretty upset when the show was canceled, because I was very excited about it," Emma said in a telephone interview from her home in Vermont. "I know some people don't like gays and lesbians because they think they are bad people. That's just a stereotype and it's kind of hurtful. I don't think people should think of us as very different. We are just the same except we have two moms."
PBS decided last week not to distribute the program to about 350 stations amid objections from various quarters, including a strongly worded disapproval from the new education secretary, Margaret Spellings. Since then, 39 stations have acquired the rights to the episode from WGBH-TV in Boston, which produced the series.
The flap over "Buster" highlights what television schedules make apparent: while gays may be acceptable on television in the evening, children with same-sex parents are not very welcome in Mr. Rogers' old neighborhood.
"We don't want to violate the trust parents have with us," said Allan Pizzato, executive director of Alabama Public Television, explaining why he wouldn't have shown the program even if PBS had distributed it. "Parents can make the decision about when they want to talk about lesbian parents. If PBS sent a program down that said there was no Santa Claus, I wouldn't air that one either. Parents should make that decision, too."
Mr. Pizzato emphasized that the issue for him was about children, not gays. "We air programs that deal with gay lifestyles all the time on Alabama public television," he said, referring to recent programs like "The Congregation," a documentary in which a Methodist pastor revealed that she was gay.
But the lifestyles shown on such shows - or commercial fare like "Will & Grace" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" - don't reflect the lives of Emma, her brothers and their parents, said one of her mothers, Gillian Pieper, who works for an insurance company. "There are no positive role model images of families like ours anywhere in mainstream media," Ms. Pieper said.
Emma's family, including her other mother, Karen Pike, was filmed about a year ago for an episode of "Postcards" meant to show things like where maple sugar and cheese come from. The episode, titled "Sugartime!," is one of 40 live-action episodes in which Buster, a cartoon character from the "Arthur" books and television series, visits real children around the country to show how they live.
The series's mandate from the Department of Education - which provided $5 million in financial support for the show, 63 percent of its budget - is to highlight diversity. Covering 24 states, Buster has visited Hmong children as well as Mormons, Muslims and evangelical Christians.
"One part of the culture we are exploring is family structures," Pierre Valette, an executive producer of the show, said, adding, "We had not done a same-sex household and had our eyes open to that when we came across Karen Pike and her family. We really liked the kids. They worked well on camera. They were really connected to their community."
Vermont, where civil unions are allowed, turned out to be one kind of community. Washington, where PBS raises money, and where Ms. Spellings just took office, is another. Ms. Spellings, who had been President Bush's domestic policy adviser, made her feelings about the episode clear in a letter to PBS, saying it was inappropriate for young children.
A few days earlier, the president, questioned in an interview with The New York Times about gay adoption, said, "Studies have shown that the ideal is where a child is raised in a married family with a man and a woman." Experts say there is no scientific evidence that children raised by gay couples fare any worse than those raised in more traditional households.
Still, with federal money at stake, and grumblings from conservative groups about the association of cartoon characters - including SpongeBob Square Pants - with possibly pro-homosexual attitudes, PBS pulled the show.
Commercial children's television hasn't been much more adventuresome. Nickelodeon, the cable network where SpongeBob makes his home, has no programs featuring same-sex parents. Cyma Zarghami, Nickelodeon Television president, said the subject was delicate.
"When is it O.K. to introduce topics to kids that parents may not be ready to introduce to kids?" Ms. Zarghami asked. "It's very personal. It's polarizing. It's probably different state by state, age by age, boomer parents versus Gen X."
Nickelodeon dealt with the issue two years ago, in a special edition of Linda Ellerbee's "Nick News," when a group of young teenagers from different backgrounds discussed what it meant for children to be raised by gay parents. A month before the special was taped, evangelical Christian groups denounced it.
Right now, a cautious attitude prevails. "We're seeing it boil down to the response of the community," said John Hesse, general manager of Houston Public Television. He said eight people wrote in urging the station to show the "Buster" episode and no one asked that it be banned. The station's solution is to broadcast the program at 8 p.m., on Feb. 18, then follow it with a panel discussion on "The Connection," a weekly talk show.
Ms. Spellings said in the letter to PBS that parents would not want their children exposed to households headed by lesbians. PBS's chief operating officer, Wayne Godwin, said in an interview that the decision not to distribute the episode was "in the better interest of the trust factor with parents and children of this country."
But Nancy Carlsson-Paige, a professor of education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., who in the past has been a consultant for WGBH, said keeping Emma and her brothers out of sight was harmful. "Attitudes or ideas of stereotype and bias develop in kids' minds in part from images they see in books and media," she said. "There's a kind of stereotyping by omission that occurs. We form our categories about families by images we've seen. It is important for children to see their own lives and subcultures reflected to feel they are part of society."
For some conservative groups, having families with same-sex parents feel part of society is precisely the danger they want to combat.
"My big concern is there's an effort in the gay activist movement to indoctrinate kids under the banner of tolerance and diversity to give misleading and inaccurate information about homosexuality," said Bill Maier, child and family psychologist in residence at Focus on the Family, the Christian organization that recently criticized SpongeBob's creator for allowing the character to be used in a what it called a "pro-homosexual video." The video's creator said it was intended to teach children about multiculturalism.
Yet even in a liberal state like Vermont, the children of same-sex marriage can feel ostracized. "At school, kids say that people say having two moms is stupid and I'm stupid because of it," said Emma's brother James, who is 11.
Farah Siddique also knows what it means to feel marginalized, and she is grateful to "Postcards From Buster" for helping her feel less so. Farah, 12, lives in a Chicago suburb with Pakistani and Filipino parents who are Muslim. In a telephone interview, she explained why she was happy to appear on "Postcards From Buster," wearing her hijab (a head covering) and studying the Koran.
"It was important to tell people about my religion and everything," she said. "Some people think we're bad because of 9/11 or something, and I'm telling them we are not bad, we're not trying to hurt anyone or do anything wrong."
Asked what she thought about PBS's decision not to distribute the "Buster" episode about the children with two mothers, she said: "We don't believe in that stuff. My opinion is that it is bad or wrong. My sister is 7, and she watches PBS Kids shows. I wouldn't want her to watch that kind of thing."
What if people said they wouldn't want to watch the episode about her because they don't like Muslims?
Without hesitation Farah replied: "Wow, I hadn't thought about it like that. Can I change what I said? If people were judging me because of my religion I would get really sad. Now I think maybe they should show it."
Experts say there is no scientific evidence that children raised by gay couples fare any worse than those raised in more traditional households.
The "experts" are pro-homosexual activist researchers who twist the data to support this conclusion.
Documenated here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1026551/posts?page=283#283
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1026551/posts?page=284#284
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1026551/posts?page=373#373
as a matter of law, most states do not allow or restrict "second parent" adoption to OPPOSITE sex. In most states do not allow heather to have two momies as a matter of law.
Six states do not allow homosexual adoptions. FL and Miss. do not allow it. UT to only married people can adopt which terminates any homosexuals adopting. The rest have restrictions.
Look for more of these "anecdotes" of normalcy.
Homosexuals are SICK as in ILL. Same as any other destructve sex festish.
I am a conservative. I agree with you. MOST of the "gay agenda" is wrong and ridiculous. I despise sexualizing children. However, what if there are gays in your community? You don't tell your children they are bad. There are plenty of straight people who are "sinning" and we need to teach our children to basically respect others.
Good post. I agree with it not being pushed on TV or other media. However, when forced to interact with gay families, I still wish to treat them as individuals and make them feel comfortable. That's just me.
You might be right. But kids living in broken hetero homes, or even intact homes where no one sees the child until after 6 pm, are not getting true parenting. I wouldn't dream of treating a child differently because his parents would rather have the nice house and goodies than spend the day with him.
Hey! LOL. There are conservatives out here, and we are struggling through the trenches of enemy territory! It aint easy!
I could not agree more. (And he probably was, or wished to have been... LOL!)
In the end, when push came to shove, "Mary" only had one Mommy. She never really had two.
Sadly, the child's feelings are different from a legal status. This is not unlike the wrenching a poor little one takes when her nanny of 4 years leaves. Whoever has been actually there with the child is very special and actually PART of the child's own security. Children's security is OUTSIDE their bodies for many years. So that child got screwed when the non-bio "Mommy" left.
I would like to get all sexuality back into the bedroom and off the streets. TV and movies were better when the sexy jokes had some element of mystique to them. Squirrels rutting isn't all that sexy. Kids hooking up is just squirrels rutting. We are not animals. We can do better.
I wish you luck with your daughter. Hope she will find her right path.
That doesn't have anything to do with anything. Why do YOU make tyhe assumption they're going to be getting "true" parenting in a homohome where the incidence of alcoholism, physical abuse, fighting, sexual abuse, and broken homes are many times HIGHER than in Heterosexual homes?
And what are you suggesting anyway? That they be taken from heteros and given to homos?
I do not assume that a homosexual set of parents are undeserving of kindness and neighborliness. I would rather my young children were kind to people than to have them discriminate between people of different kinds.
We had some neighbor friends when I was a kid that might have been lesbos for all I know. I believe we were told they were "sisters." Where was the harm in that? Why do these people have to get in everybody's face about their disordered lives and relationships all the time. I would make the case that those who kept it to themselves in order to foster harmony were the well-adjusted ones.
Jesus would not have done these things, but he would have told them to repent of their sins and follow him. He would have told them that their parents were leading them into a life of sin and they need to change the way they live.
If Jesus was walking the earth today, they would have arrested him and charged him with hate crimes.
If you are a Christian, I hope you are teaching your child love the person not the sin and I hope your child is teaching her friend about Jesus
My policy is hate the sin, not the person, bring them to Christ
Now back to the subject, what they want your child to know is that it's ok to have 2 moms or dads and that this lifestyle is good.
As a Christian I cannot accept this lifestyle as good for my children and teach them that. I became a Christian at age 30, but even before I became a Christian, the thought of this life style was repugnant to me and it wasn't natural and is even more so now.
From the looks of the kids, 3 different frozen sperm doners.
I hate to equivocate the two but non biological mommy sounds a lot like biological daddy except she didn't have to pay child support.
My problem is simply about the individuals. Actually, being around good people who live a quiet conservative life and do not wear their sexuality on their sleeve yet are gay, has made me accept them as people and as friends. What else can one do? I do not feel it's my place to make a comment about their lives, nor do I wish to keep my children away from theirs. They are good people.
I sin too, but I really don't need acquaintances coming up and pointing out my envy or sloth or whatever.
I cannot say for certain what the Son of Man might have said....
But I can tell you He wouldn't lie to the parents and tell them they are doing a good job of raising their "children". Just like He wouldn't lie to the alcoholic parents..and tell them they are doing a good job.
Fwiw-
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In the Gospel of John, Jesus told the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more. While I am sure that Jesus would be full of compassion for these people, I am also sure that he would tell these lesbian women to sin no more. They are engaged in acts that the Bible call abominations. They are living together without the benefit of marriage and they are raising illegitimate children. If we are to extend that principle of sin no more to these folks, Jesus would tell them to stop living together and renounce their lesbian lifestyle. One mommy would need to raise the children alone or revert to a normal sexual orientation and find a husband to help raise these children.
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