Bert and Ernie agenda

[Nyoibo]

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. - Plato
^-.-^

Also, The only thing necesary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

[Ginger Tea]

I am crushed to find out the Bert and Ernie are adults. I was going to comment that they're only like 10 years old, which is what I always thought they were, but then I looked it up and they're "Clearly" adults. Damn. Why are they adults? they're not adults. The only adults should be the real people.

Kermit spent some time on Sesamey street as a news reporter and there is a clearly adult humanoid muppet news anchor too, I thought Elmo was the only child muppet and he wasn't in it when I was a kid.
If Oscar the grouch was a child there would be no way they would let him live in a trash can

oh and I forgot to comment in my first post, Kermit and Miss Piggy would be inter species not inter racial, I don't think State let alone Church would allow that one to pass, no matter how much you love your donkey.

[Andara Bledin]

The point that there ARE people out there who will feel you are "attacking" them by not supporting the same things they want you to support.

But your other one still remains invalid and unsupported. Separation of church and state means the state will keep out of churchly matters (up to a certain point - they won't allow things such as human sacrifice and polygamy no matter what a religion says) and only stick there nose in when it goes beyond a purely churchly situation.

If I didn't have same-sex friends who passionately wanted to be married and whose wedding I attended when it was legalized in Denmark, I would probably feel like that too.

I am specifically non-apathetic on any matter that is, at heart, a human rights issue.

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. - Plato

^-.-^

[Mikkel]

and of course i forgot... not supporting something means you're trying your damnnest to stop it and there must be something wrong with you... or so that's what i seem to be getting from this... that i must be a bad person because i don't see things the way others do.

am i right? not supporting the agenda means i'm a hater right?

I don't know, being against that people you don't know and probably never will meet can get married, seems a little intolerant at best. Why should you have any say about that?

If you by "not supporting gay marriage" mean that you aren't actively supporting it, but won't actively oppose it either, I don't think you are anything close to a hater.

If I didn't have same-sex friends who passionately wanted to be married and whose wedding I attended when it was legalized in Denmark, I would probably feel like that too.

[DrFaroohk]

I am crushed to find out the Bert and Ernie are adults. I was going to comment that they're only like 10 years old, which is what I always thought they were, but then I looked it up and they're "Clearly" adults. Damn. Why are they adults? they're not adults. The only adults should be the real people.

[jackfaire]

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

Hence why I put "religion" in quote marks. There were people that claimed that interracial marriages were an abomination to god and entire churches of these people.

Their deeply held religious belief was often that marrying people of another race especially those people was like laying with animals. I know that was cultural but religion is part of culture.

My point is the government never told them, "Okay you have to stop being racist or perform interracial marriages now even though you find them abhorrent"

That's my point. Government cannot and will not tell people what to believe. Even if you want to believe that the Spaghetti Monster only wants you to have a 18 year old male quarterback cut your lawn on every other Tuesday while you sing Glory Glory on your front porch well as long as no part of that involves something illegal sing on.

I think everyone should feel and vote how they feel is right. I will support the right of someone to vote against gay marriage as much as I will support the right of a person to vote for it.

However I will also expect the person that votes against gay marriage to acknowledge that they are "attacking" the rights of others since no one has ever given a legitimate reason how gay marriage will negatively impact heterosexual marriage.

[PepperElf]

Actually....kinda. The issue of gay marriage and the repeal of DOMA needs all the support it can get right now.

Actually... no.

But thank you for proving one of my points.

The point that there ARE people out there who will feel you are "attacking" them by not supporting the same things they want you to support.

[AdminAssistant]

not supporting the agenda means i'm a hater right?

Actually....kinda. The issue of gay marriage and the repeal of DOMA needs all the support it can get right now.

There are churches that refuse to marry people because they've lived in sin. I know a Justice of the Peace who refused to marry someone because he knew one had committed adultery in the past, and that goes against his personal values. Churches won't be forced to marry gay couples. Won't happen. Although, personally, I hope that we all become enlightened enough that all churches will allow gay marriages, or that at least we as a populace will no longer tolerate hate speech from the pulpit. But the government can't and won't do anything about either.

Bert and Ernie aren't gay, and I do hope that Sesame Street adds some gay characters. But with PBS continually on the Republican chopping block it might be dangerous to do so.

[PepperElf]

of course.... there's always people out there who will twist something into meaning what they want it to mean.

and of course i forgot... not supporting something means you're trying your damnnest to stop it and there must be something wrong with you... or so that's what i seem to be getting from this... that i must be a bad person because i don't see things the way others do.

am i right? not supporting the agenda means i'm a hater right?



we need a "meh" face.

[Nyoibo]

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

I'm pretty sure there as a few bible passages that could be used to justify that so you could make the same arguement about gay marriage, I think you'll find that a church could refuse to marry an interracial couple too.

[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.

[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.

[jackfaire]

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

[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.

[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