Chuck Swindall Sister

Bert and Ernie: Buddies in a Sexualized Culture - Breakpoint with ...

Be getting married.

Bert and Ernie, two of the show’s Muppets, are best buddies. They live in the same house and sleep in the same room — in separate twin beds. They bicker, they share, they enjoy a bedtime cookie together every night.

They’re such good friends that some assume they must be gay. And one group used an online petition to ask “Sesame Street” to let the truth be known. Bert and Ernie, they say, should come out of the closet and get married. This would, presumably teach tolerance and respect for differences — something, the petitioners note, “Sesame Street” has tried to do for years.

“Sesame Street” made it clear that Bert and Ernie are puppets and as such, “Do not have a sexual orientation.” Good point, but that’s not the only reason that their getting married was a bad idea.

Writing in US News & World Report, Peter Roff notes that there are things little children do not need to know. “[S]ome stages of life,” he writes, “for example, the years from 2 to 4 [Sesame Street’s demographic] — must be walled off from the passions of adults.”