There are a couple of online petitions circulating to urge the folks over at Sesame Street to have Bert and Ernie marry. This is a very silly idea. As readers of this site know, I believe it is barbaric and bigoted to stop two consenting adults of any persuasion to wed…and really none of the state's business to decree that they can't. I also think it is not only inevitable that gay marriage will become legal everywhere but that eventually, those who opposed will be like those who once fought against racially-mixed marriages in this country: Ashamed to the point of, in most cases, denying they ever did that.
But Bert and Ernie? Come on. They're Muppets. They have no genitalia and no sexuality…and you know, a character is really only what its creators decide it is. The writer part of me is offended at the whole notion of outside forces with a political agenda — even a political agenda I might share — coming in and pressuring for creative changes. If Jim Henson and Frank Oz had decided Bert and Ernie were gay…okay, that would be the decision of folks with a moral right to make it.
Obviously, they did not. We've had more than 40 years of Bert and Ernie adventures without a trace of homosexual (or for that matter, heterosexual) subtext. It's not that anything sexual is right or wrong here…it's just not a part of this world. Sesame Street doesn't have to teach kids about everything. And I really don't think its target audience — kids — needs to be taught that two men can love each other. I think kids need not to be taught otherwise. For those of you who are unafraid to admit an appreciation of show tunes, there's a song in South Pacific about this. It's narrow-minded adults who need the lesson here.
One could also argue, as I would if I could stand to devote five more minutes to this whole ridiculous matter, that there's a nice lesson in Bert and Ernie not being retrofitted as gay lovers. It is possible for two men or two women to be close friends and live together and sleep in adjoining beds without their sexuality being an issue or someone saying, "They must be gay!" I don't think same-sex wedlock threatens so-called "traditional" marriages in any way. I don't think the idea that two males might just be really close friends (and nothing more) threatens gay marriages.
And what I really, really long for is the day when no one cares about or pays any attention to the straightness or gayness of other human beings. Or puppets.