Alabama says bye! What a terrible kind of gay!

[SaysWho?]

Alabama Public Television refuses to air 'Arthur' episode with gay wedding

 

Quote

During the animated series' 22nd season premiere, titled “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone," Arthur's third-grade teacher, Mr. Ratburn, marries Patrick, a chocolatier, at a wedding attended by his students, Arthur, Francine, Buster and Muffy. It aired May 13.

 

Mike McKenzie, director of programming at APT, told NBC News on Monday that PBS sent a message to stations in mid-April alerting them "to possible viewer concerns about the content of the program." After he and others at APT viewed the episode, they decided not to broadcast it and showed a re-run instead.

 

Quote

“Parents have trusted Alabama Public Television for more than 50 years to provide children’s programs that entertain, educate and inspire,” McKenzie said in a statement. “More importantly — although we strongly encourage parents to watch television with their children and talk about what they have learned afterwards — parents trust that their children can watch APT without their supervision. We also know that children who are younger than the ‘target’ audience for 'Arthur' also watch the program.”

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Snowflakes

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

Can’t be letting cartoon aardvarks give our kids teh gay...these are important issues you know!

[Chris-]

Sherman should have burned more of the south.

[ort]

I watched this with my kids. They make absolutely zero fuss over the gender of the married couple. It's just, here's ratburn and here's his spouse. The kids on the show are just like, whatevs. It's not even a thing.

 

It was the most innocent and non-offensive thing ever.

[SaysWho?]

9 minutes ago, ort said:

I watched this with my kids. They make absolutely zero fuss over the gender of the married couple. It's just, here's ratburn and here's his spouse. The kids on the show are just like, whatevs. It's not even a thing.

 

It was the most innocent and non-offensive thing ever.

 

This is why, when gay marriage was legalized and some of the board conservatives said, "I bet they'll still complain about something later!" they don't understand that the dislike/fear of gay people is deeper than legalization of gay marriage. Same-sex marriage was one of the things -- along with DADT repeal, hate crimes legislation and gay adoption -- that was a pillar of gay rights legislation. The fear of homosexuals is why all of them had to be fought for and why we still have stories like this.

[ort]

I'm offended by the rat/aardvark inter-species relationship angle.

[thewhyteboar]

If the rats were cousins, Alabamians would be ok with it.