TV
An American gay rights group has slammed that country's new Education Secretary for a letter in which she criticised America's PBS network for producing a programme that was inclusive of a gay couple.
As Digital Spy reported on Wednesday, Secretary Margaret Spellings criticised PBS for spending public money on an episode of the kids show Postcards From Buster which looked at farm life and how maple syrup is made. It just so happened that one particular farm was run by two women who happened to be partners.
Spellings wrote to PBS: "Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode. Congress' and the Department's purpose in funding this programming certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children, particularly through the powerful and intimate medium of television."
That provoked a strong response from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. That group's executive director, Joan M. Garry, said:
"For the Department of Education to try to prevent television programmes from depicting gays and lesbians should raise serious concerns for all Americans. Secretary Spellings' attempt to create and enforce a policy of invisibility for gay and lesbian families is a profoundly offensive display of intolerance, one that imposes on our children an agenda of ignorance under the guise of 'education'."
PBS has said it will pull the episode from its national distribution schedule. WGBH-TV Boston, the station that produced the programme, has said that it will air the programme and distribute it to other PBS member stations regardless of the stance of the PBS network.
As Digital Spy reported on Wednesday, Secretary Margaret Spellings criticised PBS for spending public money on an episode of the kids show Postcards From Buster which looked at farm life and how maple syrup is made. It just so happened that one particular farm was run by two women who happened to be partners.
Spellings wrote to PBS: "Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode. Congress' and the Department's purpose in funding this programming certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children, particularly through the powerful and intimate medium of television."
That provoked a strong response from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. That group's executive director, Joan M. Garry, said:
"For the Department of Education to try to prevent television programmes from depicting gays and lesbians should raise serious concerns for all Americans. Secretary Spellings' attempt to create and enforce a policy of invisibility for gay and lesbian families is a profoundly offensive display of intolerance, one that imposes on our children an agenda of ignorance under the guise of 'education'."
PBS has said it will pull the episode from its national distribution schedule. WGBH-TV Boston, the station that produced the programme, has said that it will air the programme and distribute it to other PBS member stations regardless of the stance of the PBS network.
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