Bert and Ernie agenda

[PepperElf]

I'll be blunt...

I'm pretty much into the belief of "do what you want in your own home just keep the noise down so you don't wake me up" but that goes for all couples regardless of the gender of the partners etc.


I'm not pro gay-marriage, but mainly because I think it's going to be used as a political means to force religions to change against their will. and i do not believe that the government should tell any religion what they can and cannot believe.


that being said... this whole bert & ernie thing is ONLY a mark on an agenda list.

why should a tv show put on ANY marriage between people who aren't in love with each other just to satisfy someone's agenda?


I mean seriously. I can see an interracial marriage between kermit & ms. piggy (and have seen it) because they've ALWAYS shown that they had interest in each other of some sort.


but when the creators themselves have said "bert and ernie are best friends only" why should they be forced to wed ... just to promote an agenda?



there IS a difference in promoting a lifestyle and ... shoving it down everyone's throat.

just because certain groups want to promote gay marriage does NOT mean every single children's character should have to marry his or her best friend just to make others feel happy.


I mean hell, if you want to decide that every couple that lives together out of friendship is really a romantic couple.... then Will and Grace should be married to each other too. It doesn't matter if they don't see each other as a sex-object... they need to wed because you can't have couples living together out of friendship.

[Ginger Tea]

I've not watched Sesame Street in years, are CTW making it official in the show that they are a gay couple, or is this just some PR stunt that features prominant pop culture icons that are attatched by one way or another to the gay community?

I cannot recall if they shared a double bed or two singles side by side, but they shared a bedroom thats for sure.
As viewers became adults that kinda makes it assumed they were a couple but not in your face about it more than house mates, as house mates have seperate living arrangements.

AFAIK Will & Grace did not share the same room just an appartment, that is a big difference in how its percieved, outside of College Dorms the only time two hetrosexual males shared a bedroom would be siblings (aside from the odd case of overcrowding of rooms I hear about around here.). Sharing an apartment in the Will & Grace way would also mean 2/3rds the cast of Friends would be listed as cohabiting, even though they have their own rooms.

Mind you no one batted an eye lid when Morcambe and Wise shared a double bed atleast once a show for a sketch, Ernie Wise could come across as camp when he wanted to, but no one was up in arms at LWT in the 80's to "Stop this filth".

Mind you when ever a cast member of Eastenders was listed as Gay the Scum news paper would always get uppity about it, the first gay kiss on TV or atleast Eastenders warranted a double paged article about it with a giant screen grab of what turned into a seconds worth of screen time. Brookside had a similar event with the furor about a lesbian kiss, the original airing was a quick peck, the phones went into melt down and I saw a side by side comparison of the edit they made.
Original, quick snog.
Cut, start snog, cut to other scene for a few minutes, back to end of snog. That turned seconds into minutes and I was laughing at all the fuddy duddies who thought they 'won'.

[PepperElf]

I've not watched Sesame Street in years, are CTW making it official in the show that they are a gay couple, or is this just some PR stunt that features prominant pop culture icons that are attatched by one way or another to the gay community?

It's just a PR stunt.

The official statement is here: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?cre...id=13759741267

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.

Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets™ do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.

That's why the stunt annoys me. No one else should have a say in what the characters do or say other than the writers, and of course the production company that funds the writing.


To me anything else is just a fanfic dream. Just like how I'd love to see a romance between characters such as... wolverine & rogue, Professor Higgens & Eliza, and a few other couples (some of which are very guilty pleasures indeed*)... I have to accept that my own desires do not dictate what the author should write. Nor should I have the right to force them to change it just to fit my own tastes.


* some of them "guilty pleasures" bad enough that the author in question has pretty much said in response to the pairing ideas.

(another reason why no author should be forced to pair a couple he or she doesn't want to pair)

[HYHYBT]

I'm not pro gay-marriage, but mainly because I think it's going to be used as a political means to force religions to change against their will.

How?

I've not watched Sesame Street in years, are CTW making it official in the show that they are a gay couple, or is this just some PR stunt that features prominant pop culture icons that are attatched by one way or another to the gay community?

They're not and never have been. They're just friends who live together and have very different interests and personalities. They have separate beds, though in the same room. But people have been insisting that they're "really" a gay couple for… well, probably almost as long as the show's been on. It's a shame, really, that some people cannot conceive of a close friendship that doesn't involve sex.

And as for "really," well, they're fictitious, and therefore have exactly the characteristics their creators say they do. That ought to be the end of the story.

[MadMike]

I cannot recall if they shared a double bed or two singles side by side, but they shared a bedroom thats for sure.

Twin beds, except on Family Guy.

[smileyeagle1021]

I'm not pro gay-marriage, but mainly because I think it's going to be used as a political means to force religions to change against their will. and i do not believe that the government should tell any religion what they can and cannot believe.

I hate to have to call you on this one, but by not being pro gay marriage, you ARE telling religions what to believe. My mother belongs to a church that says people of the same sex should be able to marry, and by not supporting that, you are approving of the government to tell her church what to believe.

Sorry, but this is a situation where you can't have your cake and eat it to, you can't simultaneously complain about intervention in your church while intervening in someone else's.

That, and every state, and nation, that has passed laws allowing same sex couples to wed have allowed churches to decide for themselves whether or not they will practice them and how they will handle teaching about them (Canada has no freedom of religion in their constitution as I understand it, but they still have never told a church not to teach homosexuality as a sin, what makes you think a government that has a constitution that guarantees freedom of religion, except of course if your church supports gay rights apparently, will be able to force churches to preach one way or the other).

[PepperElf]

How?
They're not and never have been. They're just friends who live together and have very different interests and personalities. They have separate beds, though in the same room. But people have been insisting that they're "really" a gay couple for… well, probably almost as long as the show's been on. It's a shame, really, that some people cannot conceive of a close friendship that doesn't involve sex.

And as for "really," well, they're fictitious, and therefore have exactly the characteristics their creators say they do. That ought to be the end of the story.

How:

if it is put into law as a right - say in the constitution - then organizations will not be allowed to deny those rights.

organizations get away with "denying" first amendment rights because it specifies that the *government* won't infringe upon your free speech. that's why it's legal to kick someone out of a store for swearing... you're not the government.

And I'm not going to touch the 2A in this cos we all know how badly the government abuses those rights and tries denying them every day.


But say other rights... like the right to vote without being infringed upon by race or creed etc... if a Church said something like "no whites can vote on this" then they could be brought up on legal issues. Or at least be forced to forgo their tax-free status.


So, if you make marriage a legal right that cannot be infringed upon by anyone else... then technically any church that says "we will not conduct this marriage" will be in violation of the law and would face legal issues.

however, at the same time... this IS a religious belief as well. So you would in fact have the government punishing religious groups for following their own beliefs. So in effect, the first amendment would be broken by the fact that the government would be interfering with what a church believes in.


that's my issue with it.



as for my issue with the bert/ernie thing... it's a PR stunt where select groups want to force a marriage against the will of the people who actually invented the characters.

and political agenda shouldn't be used to forced to create a situation the creators never wanted.



To me it's no different than going up to an author and saying, "I feel your characters are in love. If you don't create an affair or marriage between them I'll get a petition going to FORCE you to do it."

Would you like that happening to a story you wrote? Especially if the couple was never in love?

And who's to say who is right when it comes to deciding the romance of fictional characters? The readers can chose not to read - or watch in the case of TV - but should an author be forced to create something he or she doesn't want just to please others?


In a way I'm reminded of something neil gaiman once wrote in response to a fan asking if it's OK to nag an author about not writing fast enough...

Neil: [author's name] isn't your bitch.



i mean sure... there's some pairings I'd LOVE to see. Especially from the Harry Potter series. (provided both members in the couple are of-age when the romance starts) but... I also know JKR was DISGUSTED by some of those pairings.

Should I perhaps force her to write it because I want to read it? Or should I just accept that I cannot always get what I want and that the author doesn't owe me anything?

I'm personally going with the latter... besides there's always fanfic.

[jackfaire]

How:

if it is put into law as a right - say in the constitution - then organizations will not be allowed to deny those rights.

Actually that depends on the circumstances. A church has the right to refuse to perform a marriage. Doing so is not denying the person's right to get married your just refusing to perform the wedding.

Something churches do now. Some churches insist that a couple go to pre-marriage counseling or the church will not perform the ceremony. This has no bearing on the couples right to marry.

If the church doesn't wish to hire a minister because he is a gay man married to a gay man they have that right as then his faith contradicts what they wish their minister to preach to their church and it is a matter of faith.

Where the government could step in is that a church could not refuse to hire a janitor on the basis of his sexual orientation and marriage alone. As well they could not offer spouse benefits to other employees but not to the Janitor's husband.

The government only gets a say in the part where the church is acting like a business. In the part where it is a church they cannot force the Church to alter it's beliefs.

[mikoyan29]

I think the problem is that there is marriage the religious insitute and marriage the civil institute. And to me gay marriage about the second part.

[jackfaire]

There were churches that had "religious" problems with marrying a an interracial couple. Did they get over it or did the government force them to?

[Gravekeeper]

Yeah, leave poor Bert & Ernie alone. Well, Ernie's probably fine but Bert probably lives a life of misery as a middle aged grown man stuck living with his man child room mate from college to make ends meet. ;p

I'm not opposed to Sesame Street having a gay character ( a *human* one, as noted, puppets don't have orientation ), as that would be in line with the show's values of acceptance. But changing an existing character is a bad idea.

Oh, and yeah, while same sex marriage is legal in Canada. The state cannot force a church to perform one here. Its left up to individual churchs. To quote:

3. It is recognized that officials of religious groups are free to refuse to perform marriages that are not in accordance with their religious beliefs.

3.1 For greater certainty, no person or organization shall be deprived of any benefit, or be subject to any obligation or sanction, under any law of the Parliament of Canada solely by reason of their exercise, in respect of marriage between persons of the same sex, of the freedom of conscience and religion guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the expression of their beliefs in respect of marriage as the union of a man and woman to the exclusion of all others based on that guaranteed freedom.

So yeah, the whole zomigawd thar gonna make us marry the gays argument that crops up down south is BS. It's not even the case in Canada, and we're a liberal socialist wasteland teetering on the apocolypse. ;p

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets™ do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.

Not entirely true. Going way back to the first season you had Bert serenading Connie Stevens and you also have Bert singing "I want to hold your ear" on several albums (the original sketch was done by another muppet) where he sings of his affection for his girlfriend, who would fall apart every time she saw him.

So by those in canon references, Bert is straight.

That being said, I do not have a problem if CTW were to add a gay couple to the street cast. Perhaps a couple with a child who can help teach that just because they have two mommies or two daddies, they are still as loved as any other child in a stable and caring home.

But B&E should remain as the lesson that they are. That you can be two totally different people, two different personalities, even be aggravated by the antics of the other...

...and still be good friends.

[jackfaire]

Next thing you know they are going to be doing a show called the Fairy Odd Couple

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

I'm not pro gay-marriage, but mainly because I think it's going to be used as a political means to force religions to change against their will. and i do not believe that the government should tell any religion what they can and cannot believe.

I wouldn't worry about that too much. In the places that have legalized Marriage Equality, it is still up to the individual churches whether or not they want to perform the ceremony.

This has been a right of the church for many a year. My own church refused to perform the ceremony for me and my first wife because she was a deist that held no truck with organized religion. She simply wanted the full church do for the sake of having the "typical wedding" with all the trimmings.

Since she wouldn't convert, we were told to find somewhere else to hold the ceremony. They also strongly suggested that I find a new place of worship but that's neither here nor there in this discussion.

So I did what many gay couples have to do. I went searching for a church that didn't care (Unitarian in my case) and was happy to have me join them and be married by them.

I know in New Hampshire there is at least one Lutheran church that performed my friend's wedding (gay male couple), the church down the road from me in Maryland has stated that if Maryland decided to allow it, they would allow their beloved homosexual parishioners to be wed in the church and by the pastor as well and they're Episcopalians (which I jokingly refer to as "Catholic Lite - All the ritual, half the guilt")

So I rather doubt that it will be a tool to lever churches to do what they don't want to do. If they want to have gay marriages, they can. If they don't, they won't. It will be up to the parishioners to decide what church is compatible with their opinions on homosexuality.

[PepperElf]

There were churches that had "religious" problems with marrying a an interracial couple. Did they get over it or did the government force them to?

actually that wasn't religion based but culture based.
nice try.