Homosexuality in children's media?

[Draka]

I don't know if anyone has seen or heard of "Postcards From Buster." It is a spinoff childrens show off the Arthur series. There was an episode entitled "Sugartime" in which the family operating the sugar farm had a lesbian couple as parents of the children in the episode. This was a backdrop for the question of what Buster should get for his mother on Mother's Day and he was asking the children in this family for ideas and how to make sweets. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings had said that this episode "did not fulfill the intent Congress had in mind for programming and that many parents would not want their children exposed to such lifestyles."

Just wondering how people here felt about this. Please give responses to your poll answers. Would be helpful in project at school.

 

[No*s]

I don't like censorship at all. The government should keep their hands out of what people say. If parents don't like it, don't watch it. Unless this is something required by the government, I can't see any justification for censorship even being plausible. :149:

 

[Majikthise]

I think some people just have to complain about something.:bonk:

 

[robtex]

Gay parents exist. There is no reason to believe that gay parents are any less capable than straight parents. The main reason we have "homesexual issues" today is a bunch or religious zealots conferred with texts on a subject after trying to talk to God directly and getting no answer to questions about life. At some point enough of these zealots who live for God or who behave as they think God wants them to connect with one another and formed a community of anti-homosexuality.

In light that there is no evidence that

1) gay parents are statistcially worse than straight parents
2_ that God made and premermitted homosexuals to exist and
3) in spite of numerous war dances and human sacrifices ( fundies murdering gay people)

gay couple keep on living a perfeclly normal life-style I can't see why a corporation that sells videos for profit should come to any other conclusion than to market vidoes they think that they can profit from.

 

[Master Vigil]

I think homosexual partners should be more and more common in childrens media these days. The only way we can change the majorities ideas of it being deviant, is to make it common and normal for our kids, and the future.

 

[john313]

i do not think it should be censored, but if i had children i would not let them watch it. it is not something i would want my children doing, so i would not show it to them.

 

[Bastet]

It should come as no surprise that I think this censorship is bull****. The episode of that tv show that Draka is talking about is now only available on the internet. Right up there with the Paris Hilton video, obviously.

Last year in Australia, there was a huge kerfuffle because the kids tv show 'Play School' showed a two minute (real life) clip of a girl going to the park with her "two mum's". I couldn't believe the crap flying around from the conservative side of the camp. I was so pissed off I wrote a letter to the editor of a magazine, and it was published. I was quite happy about that. The little girl in that clip has since written a children's book, in which there are gay and lesbian families, and now there is talk of it being banned. I hope it sells like hotcakes!

i do not think it should be censored, but if i had children i would not let them watch it.

That's your prerogative...I wish more people of a particular persuasion thought like this.

it is not something i would want my children doing, so i would not show it to them.

Ooh, then being the militant vegetarian that you are, I hope you don't show them any footage of people eating meat.

 

[Master Vigil]

"kerfuffle"

I think if more and more people used the word kerfuffle, the world would be a better place. That made me smile REAL big.

 

[Green Gaia]

I see no problem with this (obviously) and fully support kids being exposed to different kinds of families. I remember being shocked at the thought of someone's parents being divorced, that was big thing. Or someone being raised by family members other than their parents. It was completely foreign to me as a child. I wish I had known of other types of families then, I might not have been so shy around those kids.

 

[cardero]

I was always curious about how children perceived same sex relationships especially after a divorce. For example I was in a relationship with a woman who was recently divorced and I know that sometimes children of a discontinued marriage can become somewhat uncomfortable, defensive and skeptical of a new man coming into a mother’s life. Is the transition much easier if the parent chooses a same sex partner for their next relationship? Does it depend if you have a daughter or son?

 

[Valjean]

I think it's best to introduce children to the real world. Sheltering them by representing a fantastical or sanitized world results in culture shock and adjustment problems later in life. Eg: It's harder do divest oneself of bigotry than never to have learned it.

The American Pediatric Association has found no differences in the children of gay vs hetero couples.

 

[Lycan]

I see no problem with it, I have 2 daughters and I have tried to make sure they know that people have differences and that it isn't a bad thing. Without graphic detail I have let them know about differences in sexual orientation. I mean they are going to be straight or gay regardless of what they watch on tv. I am just trying to do my best to raise them tolerant and accepting (but still questioning )

 

[Dr. Nosophoros]

I think Groucho Marx best sums up my thoughts on television,
"I find television very educational, everytime someone turns one on, I go read a book"

To me television isn't a necessity, I used to have time limits on my kids T.V. watching because I felt in this "modern" world they would watch it somewhere else if we didn't let them do a little at home. Instead I encouraged and participated with them in outside play, going to the park, playing ball, reading, trying/learning to play an instrument, drawing a picture, etc. It had nothing to do with the "gay" thing, it had to do with that I felt that most television was worthless and mind numbingly stupid and still do. The funny thing about it is that when my daughter visits (now 20- I adopted her) when we reminisce we don't talk about "hey you remember that episode blah blah blah" we talk about all the good times we had outside of that.

As far as "educating" children on this and that, I feel that is a parents responsibility to do so, and children as they grow older will see whether you are right, wrong, or didn't have a clue through their own personal experiences and will make their own decisions based on them.

 

[Prima]

My view on this (organized as always )

1 - Not letting something on T.V. doesn't make it any less real. At some point, the kids are going to find out anyway. Pretending that something isn't there doesn't make it disappear!

2 - There are a few people who are allowed to stop the programming: the one who owns the channel, the one who is producing the show, and the government IFF it breaks a law. Obviously the first two did not stop it from airing. The third has no right to stop it. The government can only intervene if a law is being broken. There is no law that says "children must be sheltered from (cringe of dismay) homosexuality!"

3 - Parents have always, and will always have a right to control what their children watch. If they don't want to have their children see it - they can turn it off! That doesn't mean that other parents don't want their children to see it. I, for example, think that Survivor is a load of crap. That doesn't mean I'm going to protest it, because obviously other people like it (for some reason...) It is wrong, both morally and legally, to force your opinions on someone else.

4 - On a side note, I would let my kids watch it (if I had kids!) I would rather them see it when I was there with them, and have their facts come from me, than have their facts some from that kid at school who calls everything 'gay' and calls the other kids 'faggots'

 

[Bastet]

I think Groucho Marx best sums up my thoughts on television,
"I find television very educational, everytime someone turns one on, I go read a book"

Television is not the only source of children's media (although I do think that children these days watch an appalling amount of it). What do you think about homosexual characters/families being portrayed in children's books?

 

[linwood]

I don`t have a problem with any childrens media containing homosexuality as it is merely a part of our world and they should learn about our world.

I do want to speak up in defense of TV however especially for young kids.

My 4 year old is speaking Spanish and asking me about concepts I`d never thought of at her age all because she learned them on Nickelodeon.

It is by no means a substitute for parenting but it brings alot to the table that the parent may have overlooked had the child not been exposed to it through TV.

 

[michel]

I voted with the majority which surprised me. I think it's good to bring ideas to kids in a subtle way so they don't end up feeling really 'screwed' later on, in their teenage years. Done with a certain amount of discretion, yes, I think it's good; a kind of a 'desensatization' process.

 

[Feathers in Hair]

I think if more and more people used the word kerfuffle, the world would be a better place. That made me smile REAL big.

I agree with this, and feel more strongly about it than I do the concept of my theoretical children being 'exposed' to alternate lifestyles. If I have my druthers, some friends I have currently would be their 'aunts', so seeing it on TV wouldn't come as a suprise. I hope I would have already explained to the kid that, in my opinion, everyone should be able to love any other person they want. I would also explain why some people take issue with this, doing so in tolerant terms.

 

[Melody]

No matter what your religious beliefs, you still have to live in the real world alongside people who do not live by your beliefs. It's never a bad thing for children to learn tolerance and they can only do that by being exposed to something in the first place.

Personally, if a big purple dinosaur didn't warp my son's mind, I doubt the knowledge that a child can have two mommies or two daddies will warp him either.

 

[Lightkeeper]

Children seeing a gay family aren't going to be turned gay. All I can think of is how much easier life would have been if I was told as a child that it was O.K. to have lesbian or gay families. I could have had a real life instead of pretending to be something I wasn't. These do-gooders in trying to protect children from real life are damaging homosexual children. They are also hurting heterosexual children by hiding them from life and teaching them to be bigoted.