PBS has pulled a children's show because it depicts a family headed by
two lesbian women who are join in civil union in Vermont. The story is
below.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/arts/television/27bust.html?oref=login
Culture Wars Pull Buster Into the Fray
By JULIE SALAMON
Published: January 27, 2005

Wayne Godwin, chief operating officer of PBS, got a bit tangled as he
tried to explain the PBS stance on gay characters appearing on
children's television shows.

"In fairness I would have to say a gay character is not one we would
not include," he said, and then clarified. "The fact that a character
may or may not be gay is not a reason why they should or should not be
part of this series."

Yet on Tuesday PBS decided not to distribute to its roughly 350 PBS
stations an episode of "Postcards From Buster," which was scheduled
for Feb. 2 and included lesbian mothers, even though a few days
earlier PBS officials, among them PBS's president, Pat Mitchell,
viewed the episode and called it appropriate. That was before
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings denounced the program, starring
Buster Baxter, a cute animated rabbit who until now has been known
primarily as a close friend of Arthur, the world's most famous
aardvark. Ms. Spellings said many parents would not want children
exposed to a lesbian life style.

Buster joined another cartoon character, SpongeBob SquarePants, as a
focus of the nation's culture wars. SpongeBob was recently attacked by
Christian groups for being pro-homosexual, though SpongeBob's creator
said it was all a misinterpretation. Buster's offense was appearing in
"Sugartime!," the undistributed "Postcards From Buster" show, in which
he visits children living in Vermont whose parents are a lesbian
couple. Civil unions are allowed in Vermont.

"Postcards From Buster" is a spinoff of "Arthur" that combines live
action and animation and went on the air a year ago. In the series,
aimed at young elementary schoolchildren, Buster travels to 24
different states with his father and sends video postcards home.

Buster appears briefly onscreen, but mainly narrates these live-action
segments, which show real children and how they live. One episode
featured a family with five children, living in a trailer in Virginia,
all sharing one room. In another, Buster visits a Mormon family in
Utah. He has dropped in on fundamentalist Christians and Muslims as
well as American Indians and Hmong. He has shown the lives of children
who have only one parent, and those who live with grandparents.

Marc Brown, creator of "Arthur" and "Postcards From Buster," said in a
statement: "I am disappointed by PBS's decision not to distribute the
'Postcards From Buster' 'Sugartime!' episode to public television
stations. What we are trying to do in the series is connect kids with
other kids by reflecting their lives. In some episodes, as in the
Vermont one, we are validating children who are seldom validated. We
believe that 'Postcards From Buster' does this in a very natural way -
and, as always, from the point of view of children."

Jeanne Hopkins, a spokeswoman for the show's producer, WGBH-TV of
Boston, added, "We feel it's important that we not exclude kids
because of what their family structure looks like." WGBH plans to
broadcast the episode in March and offer it to other PBS stations.

Like the grown-ups in most of the episodes, the lesbian mothers in the
"Sugartime!" segment are mainly background. "The concern really was
that there's a point where background becomes foreground," Mr. Godwin
said. "No matter if the parents were intended to be background, with
this specific item in this particular program they might simply be
foreground because of press attention to it and parental attention to it."

The question is, does the episode violate the grant under which WGBH
received federal funds? Mr. Godwin said, "The presence of a couple
headed by two mothers would not be appropriate curricular purpose that
PBS should provide."

The grant specifies the programs "should be designed to appeal to all
of America's children by providing them with content and characters
with which they can identify." In addition, the grant says, "Diversity
will be incorporated into the fabric of the series to help children
understand and respect differences and learn to live in a
multicultural society."

Brigid Sullivan, vice president for children's programming at WGBH,
has been producing children's shows for 20 years, including "Arthur,"
for many years the top-rated children's show. "This asked for a
project on diversity to all of America's children," she said. "We took
it seriously and thought that with 'Arthur,' the No. 1 show on
television for kids for years, we had something to draw kids in.
Buster is Arthur's best friend, the child of divorce, he has asthma.
Children sympathize with him. We had a breakthrough format, this
animated bunny with his camera getting live-action sequence. Not to
present a make-believe world of diversity but a real world."

Explaining the goal of the show, Ms. Sullivan said: "We want to
reflect all of America's children."

"This is not about their parents," she said.

PBS has pulled a children's show because it depicts a family headed by
two lesbian women who are join in civil union in Vermont. The story is
below.

If you are a viewer or subscriber of/to a PBS station, let them know
of your displeasure here:
http://www.pbs.org/aboutsite/aboutsite_emailform.html