From The Washington Post, 3/6/05:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10415-2005Mar5.html
What Has Floppy Ears And a Subversive Tale?
By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 6, 2005; Page D01
Like forbidden dissenters in some intolerant land, a couple hundred
families took refuge in a church basement in Washington yesterday for
a morning of dangerous television.
So controversial were the images that the Bush administration wants
its underwriting money back.
So subversive was its plot that the local public television station
refused to air it.
Drinks were served: juice boxes.
And hors d'oeuvres: Goldfish crackers.
Faces were painted, and balloons were twisted into ladybug hats.
Did we mention that a plurality of this revolutionary audience was
younger than 10?
The sheets of 160 stick-on nametags at the door of Church of the
Pilgrims Presbyterian -- those radical Presbyterians! -- ran out
quickly, and an additional 100 or more had to be improvised with
masking tape.
The army of strollers and car seats and diaper bags kept coming to the
big gothic church at the corner of P and 22nd streets NW.
They had come to see a television cartoon rabbit by the name of
Buster.
In the 40 episodes of the show "Postcards from Buster," Buster and his
dad, an airplane pilot, fly around America visiting real kids and
learning about their regions, cultures and religions.
The dangerous episode being shown yesterday is called "Sugartime!" and
in it Buster visits kids in Vermont.
He learns about making maple sugar, milking cows, buying cheese.
He shares a Jewish Shabbat meal.
But what makes the show so scary for some adults is that some of the
kids on the show live with two moms.
(Not that there's anything wrong with that, say those nervous adults.)
Nevertheless, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings wrote to PBS last
month:
"Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the
lifestyles portrayed in this episode."
She asked for the Education Department's $160,000 back.
PBS decided not to send the show to its stations because, said
programming co-chief John Wilson last month, "it was an issue best
left for parents and children to address together at a time and manner
of their own choosing."
Ninety-four of PBS's 349 stations, covering 53 percent of households,
decided to air it anyway, obtaining a feed directly from the producers
at WGBH in Boston.
But you couldn't see it in Washington.
"We agreed with PBS that the program issues should be addressed at a
time and place of the parents' choosing," said Mary Stewart, vice
president of communications for WETA.
("Buster" usually airs on WETA weekdays at 3:30 p.m.)
Believing that their government and their public television station
had let them down, some angry Presbyterians took programming matters
into their own hands.
"We decided what is best for our community and that is to give parents
the choice to have their children view this episode," said Diana
Bruce, a church member who is married to a man (not that there's
anything wrong with that) named Bart Oosterveld.
They have two children, Emma, 3, and Sebastian, 1.
Church of the Pilgrims has 150 members, is a More Light Presbyterian
congregation, one of 109 churches in the mainline Presbyterian Church
(USA) that dissent from the church's ban on ordaining gay officers.
At a time when religion is often cited against homosexuality, the Rev.
Jeff Krehbiel, the pastor, said congregations like his must embrace
families of all types "not despite our Christian convictions but
because of our Christian convictions."
A church member's sister living outside San Francisco TiVo'ed
"Sugartime!" when it aired there.
She burned it onto a DVD and sent it to Washington.
Church members began talking with Human Rights Campaign, the national
gay rights group based in Washington, which also wanted to have a
community screening.
HRC covered expenses, including inviting Gillian Pieper, one of the
moms from Vermont, and two of her children, Emma and James, both 11.
As the audience took seats on the floor, parents had their hands full
of face-painted, balloon-hatted, high-pitched kid energy.
After the lights went down, here is what they saw:
[WARNING! The following dialogue may contain sophisticated themes for
mature audiences. ]
Buster: So Gillian's your mom, too?
Emma: She's my stepmom.
Buster: Boy, that's a lot of moms!
Emma: Yup. [Showing framed family photo.] This is mom and Gillian
right here.
Buster: That's a nice picture.
Emma: This is one of my favorite pictures.
Buster: How come?
Emma: Because it has my mom and Gillian, people I love a lot, and they
read a lot to me.
During the rest of the 30-minute episode, these moms and two other
moms turn up now and then, but they're part of the blur of adults as
the kids learn about Vermont.
Pieper, a health educator for a health insurance company, and her
partner, Karen Pike, a freelance photographer, were joined in a civil
union in their home state in 2002.
"Aren't my kids cool?" Pieper, 38, said to the audience after the show
yesterday.
Loud cheers came in reply.
"By being here and clapping for them, you have given so much more than
Margaret Spellings has taken away."
Emma and James were celebrities to the young Buster fans in the house.
Emma joined the other kids putting their painted handprints on a big
poster addressed to Spellings.
Emma added this message for the secretary: "I love my 2 moms."
Kids also colored in another poster for WETA.
Pieper said the producers had been looking for two-mom families and
settled on hers after another option fell through.
They liked how Emma and her siblings and moms interacted.
Emma, a huge fan of Arthur, put in three 14-hour days of hard work
acting in the Buster show.
"It was fun," she said.
But when the show wasn't allowed to be broadcast because of her
family, "it was disturbing."
She explained her understanding of the fuss:
"They didn't want parents having stress about their kids learning
about lesbian families."
What would Emma say to Spellings and the others?
"What if one of your kids turns out to be gay or lesbian? Then you'll
know how it felt."
After the screening, straight parents said the way to discuss
two-mommy or two-daddy families with children is precisely not to make
it such a big hairy deal.
"We think as a family it's important to understand the world and all
the people in it," said John G. Humphrey, who came from Alexandria
with his wife, Luisa Tio, and daughters Ana, 4, and Mia, 2.
"They have friends whose parents are gay or lesbian. . . . We discuss
it just as we do any other type of family."
"I think unless you make it an issue, it's not an issue," said Jen
Sherman, from the District, with Sam, 7, and Ella, 3.
"It's like prejudice; people don't come out of the womb knowing about
it."
Leigh Anne Fraley drove down from Silver Spring with Bayden, 5,
Isaiah, 3, and Ben, 4 months.
She said it's harder to explain a divorced family to a child; the
child might worry that her own parents could stop loving each other.
But two moms?
During the drive, she explained to her children they would be meeting
a girl with two mothers.
The kids seemed fine with that and they enjoyed the show.
Gay parents such as Mary Kate Cullen said it was vital to bring their
children yesterday because nowhere else on children's television do
they see families like theirs.
Her son Conor, 2, has two moms.
"It was only a half-hour but that was time enough to see other
children who have two moms," Cullen said.
Jake Williams, 14, attending with his two mothers, Teresa Williams and
Jo Deutsch, said people who wouldn't want to see a two-mom family on
television have never spent time with one.
"If they did," he said, "they would realize they're normal people with
normal lives."
Last week it was announced that the "Buster" series has been nominated
for two daytime television Emmys, for outstanding children's series
and for outstanding writing in a children's series.
_______________________________________________________________
Harry
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