This is beginning to look like a bad Saturday Night Live parody that you’ve seen over and over and over again:
WASHINGTON – The nation’s new education secretary denounced PBS on Tuesday for spending public money on a cartoon with lesbian characters, saying many parents would not want children exposed to such lifestyles.
It’s the here-we-go-again department…a sinking feeling that the more you read, the more you’re going to find something in there that is itself part of an agenda. Those damn darn cartoons again!(By the way, let’s ban Pinocchio: what do you think it was REALLY telling kids when his nose got longer?) So you read on, and:
The not-yet-aired episode of “Postcards From Buster� shows the title character, an animated bunny named Buster, on a trip to Vermont — a state known for recognizing same-sex civil unions. The episode features two lesbian couples, although the focus is on farm life and maple sugaring.
A PBS spokesman said late Tuesday that the nonprofit network has decided not to distribute the episode, called “Sugartime!,� to its 349 stations. She said the Education Department’s objections were not a factor in that decision.
“Ultimately, our decision was based on the fact that we recognize this is a sensitive issue, and we wanted to make sure that parents had an opportunity to introduce this subject to their children in their own time,� said Lea Sloan, vice president of media relations at PBS.
Now, that is an argument that people can reasonably debate. It’s not one that’s packed with exclusionary language or concepts that will accentuate divisions in this country. And it’s an argument that would still upset people who feel the cartoon should be aired, but it doesn’t veer into hot-button areas. Sloan is simply saying a)this is a sensitive issue, b)parents should make the decision.
But there’s more. We haven’t heard the words of our new Education Secretary yet:
However, the Boston public television station that produces the show, WGBH, does plan to make the “Sugartime!� episode available to other stations. WGBH also plans to air the episode on March 23, Sloan said.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said the “Sugartime!� episode does not fulfill the intent Congress had in mind for programming. By law, she said, any funded shows must give top attention to “research-based educational objectives, content and materials.�
Now, here comes a clear agenda item — as much part of an agenda as the "gay agenda" that religious groups warn against. Here comes the throwing down the gauntlet, taking it beyond the consensus-friendly issue of letting parents decide for themselves:
“Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode,� Spellings wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive officer of PBS.
“Congress’ and the Department’s purpose in funding this programming certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children, particularly through the powerful and intimate medium of television.�
She asked PBS to consider refunding the money it spent on the episode.
So its a matter now less of parents introducing something to their kids about some things that exist — which is parental call — to the fact that the new Secretary of Education apparently feels that if a child is "exposed to the lifestyles" the cartoon apparently contains, their minds will be infected and a kind of moral brain cancer will set in. Or perhaps there’s a fear the kids will turn into the cartoon characters they watch.
Stating opposition because you feel parents should have the right to explain it to their kids is different than warning that kids will be "exposed to the lifestyles."
Why do we get a sinking feeling this will be the most polarizing four years ever?
UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis has a reaction akin to ours.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.