There are some good things to be said for Margaret Spellings, Bush's new Education Department Secretary. Back when they were both single, GW reportedly asked Spellings out on a date, but she brutally rebuffed him. That sounds about right. Also, Spellings was once asked on C-SPAN for comment on census data that showed a decline in the traditional family. Her response? "So what?" She said that there are "lots of different types of family" and noted that she herself was "a single mom." Finally, she replaces Rod Paige, who was the worst Secretary of Education this nation has seen.
That said, some of her first acts in office make me shiver in cold anticipation of what's to come. She's pissed at PBS. She's actually pissed at PBS and a bunny. An animated bunny with his own TV show, Postcards from Buster. Buster travels with a digital camera, giving kids a chance to see different people, places, religions and ways of life. Produced by my own hometown station, WGBH, the show is part of a larger program that receives some of its funding from the DoE.
It seems that in his recent travels, Buster took a trip to Vermont. He learned about maple sugaring, farm life, and - this is what upsets Spellings so much - met two lesbian couples who were getting a civil union. This incensed Spellings enough to demand that PBS remove the DoE's seal from the credits, notify member stations of the controversial nature of the episode, and refund the DoE for the costs of producing it. She also warned that the DoE will be clearer about its expectations for future programming.
PBS has decided not to distribute the episode. They claim that it's not because of Spellings' recent actions. I don't buy it. I am, however, proud of my local station, WGBH, which plans to air the episode in March and will be making it available to other stations.
Here's the thing. Today, 37 US soldiers died in Iraq. Over 1,400 US soldiers have died to date. Over 10,000 wounded, a number that leaves out vast numbers of soldiers suffering mental illness or trauma. According to some estimates, as many as 10,000 more Iraqi civilians have died. But somehow, men marrying men and women marrying women continues to register as a problem for people. I don't understand. My not-understandingness is so physically heavy that I wish I could find plainer words to explain - I don't understand. It's a bunny showing kids lives that may be different or similar to their own. Some kids have gay parents. The bunny isn't saying, look, the gay parents are good. The bunny isn't saying they are bad. The bunny just says that they are. That this is a fact of our lives in 21st century America. The bunny's not wrong. Why, oh why, do the conservatives want to deny and deny and deny the facts of people's lives? And why is PBS taking the politically expedient route and agreeing to denial?
We harm a child of gay parents when we say, 'as a society, we will not acknowledge your existence.' We harm our society when we deny the truth and experience of any one child.
This sucks.
1 comment:
WGBH's response to PBS's refusal to distribute and the DoE Secretary's inflammatory remarks.
http://www.wgbh.org/support/in_the_news
WGBH regrets the decision of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) not to provide public TV stations with the "Sugartime" episode of Postcards from Buster, produced by WGBH's Children's Programming department.
....
We consider it the responsibility of public television to give children and parents the resources they need to understand the world they inhabit—without excluding any segment of our society.
The major goal of Postcards from Buster is to help kids understand the richness and complexity of American culture, and to support the language learning of children who are in the process of acquiring English. Over the course of the series we feature more than 45 different families, introducing young people from many ethnic backgrounds, including Mormons in Utah, Hmong in Wisconsin, Orthodox Jews, and a Pentacostal Christian family. The series explores the role of religion in their lives. We visit kids living in a variety of settings in cities, suburbs, and the country.
Of the 40 Postcards episodes, this is the only one that visits with kids in this kind of family structure (the majority of episodes are with two–parent, male/female households; we also visit kids who live in single–parent households and extended family households). We included the Vermont family because significant numbers of children in the United States live in a similar family structure.
WGBH stands behind this production.
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