Today In Mildly Interesting Trivia

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Sesame Street: Bert & Ernie Are Not Gay

Sesame Street officials have responded to this week's petition to allow Bert and Ernie to marry on the show.

"Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves. "Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics, they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation," Sesame Workshop said in a statement posted on Facebook.

Yesterday's statement echoes those issued in previous years.

NEW YORK: Catholic Archdiocese Opposes Sex Education In Public Schools

It may be hard to believe, but sex education is currently not available to all public high school students in New York City. Each school is allowed to decide whether to offer the courses and only about half do. Bloomberg wants to change that, much to the outrage of busybodies from the Catholic Church.

In the first serious challenge to the city’s mandate, which was announced on Tuesday, a spokesman for the archdiocese said the church’s position was that parents, not the schools, should educate children about sex. “Parents have the right and the responsibility to be the first and primary educators of their children,” Joseph Zwilling, director of communications for the archdiocese, wrote in a statement. “This mandate by the city usurps that role, and allows the public school system to substitute its beliefs and values for those of the parents.”

The Catholic League's reliably whacko Bill Donahue weighs in:

There is a sex-education program that could work, and it is one that is similar to the approach being used to discuss smoking. We don't tell kids not to smoke and then instruct them on the proper way to inhale. No, we show them horrifying pictures of a smoker's lungs. We tell them of the physical pain they are likely to endure by smoking. We tell them how it will shorten their life expectancy. We could do the same when discussing sexual experimentation at a young age. We could discuss how abortion affects the psyche of the mother who elects to terminate her baby. We could show pictures of what abortion does to the child being cut up into pieces. We could instruct them on the link between unwed motherhood and poverty. We could inform them of the greater likelihood of acquiring a sexually transmitted disease. In other words, we could teach the negative real-life consequences of sexual experimentation at a young age.

Jessie J - Who's Laughing Now

Pop In Stereo tips us to this anti-bullying single from openly bisexual British pop singer Jessie J., who first came to American notice as the author of the Miley Cyrus smash, Party In The USA.

Linda Harvey: Ban Gay Teachers

"Kids should not be put in the confusing position of having a teacher they like and respect in many ways who’s also known to be practicing homosexual behavior. Of course that’s where many of our children in public schools today find themselves because the National Education Association not only allows but applauds and defends openly homosexuality and even transvestite teachers. The fact is that no homosexuality should be in our schools, period. When people leave that behavior behind, then they might be qualified for a job involving children. Out and proud homosexuals should not have jobs that involve children. I know that’s not the current policy in many schools but it should be." - Linda Harvey of the SPLC-certified hate group Mission America.

Quote Of The Day - David Barton

"The letter reminds school superintends that it is ‘not uncommon for adolescents to experience transient,’ that’s a big word, ‘transient confusion about their sexual orientation,’ and is telling 14,800 superintendents that ‘most students will ultimately adopt a heterosexual orientation if not otherwise encouraged.’ And they’re saying, guys, back off. This indoctrination you’re doing. If you’ll just let this develop naturally, they’ll end up being heterosexual unless you force them to be homosexual. Well that’s a remarkable letter coming from the leading pediatric association in America." - Historical revisionist David Barton, citing a letter sent to the nation's schools by an essentially fictitious group of pediatricians.

RELATED: The real "leading pediatric organization," the American Academy of Pediatrics (with 60,000 members), is quite gay friendly. OMG, that Christianist dude just totally LIED! Shocking!

Email Of The Day - Eugene Delguadio

"Dear Joe, The Radical Homosexuals infiltrating the United States Congress have a plan: Indoctrinate an entire generation of American children with pro-homosexual propaganda and eliminate traditional values from American society. Their ultimate dream is to create a new America based on sexual promiscuity in which the values you and I cherish are long forgotten. You see, the Homosexual Classrooms Act contains a laundry list of anti-family provisions that will exempt homosexual students from punishment for propositioning, harassing, or even sexually assaulting their classmates, as part of their specially-protected right to 'freedom of self-expression.'" - Escaped mental patient Eugene Delguadio, the self-proclaimed Public Advocate of the United States.

NOTE: Delgaudio's emails are always entertaining due to the dizzying heights of his outrageous lying. But I always wonder how many old ladies are eating cat food tonight because they've signed over their meager funds to charlatans like Eugene Delgaudio, who closes every email with a desperate plea for money.

MISSOURI: Public School Board Bans Novels That Are "Contrary To The Bible"

A public school board in Missouri has banned Kurt Vonnegut's classic novel Slaughterhouse Five because it "teaches ideas that are contrary to the Bible." This action came after a protracted complaint campaign by local university "professor" Wesley Scroggins.

Shortly before 9 p.m. Monday, the school board voted 4-0 -- three members were absent -- to keep Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak," an award-winning book about date rape, and remove Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five" and Sarah Ockler's "Twenty Boy Summer." Wesley Scroggins, a Republic resident, challenged the use of the books and lesson plans in Republic schools, arguing they teach principles contrary to the Bible. "I congratulate them for doing what's right and removing the two books," said Scroggins, who didn't attend the board meeting. "It's unfortunate they chose to keep the other book."

Anti-Gay Group Vows: We'll Overturn California's "Nazi" LGBT History Bill

More anti-gay hate groups are piling on the petition drive to place a repeal of California's LGBT history bill on the June 2012 ballot. Today, it's the World Congress of Families.

"When people have [voted], and Governor Brown knows that he has an issue that would fail when put to a popular vote, of course, they just go around the people," Jacobs explains. "They essentially implement their will. And, of course, in a democracy, that's not the way things are supposed to work. It's certainly something that forces our children to be indoctrinated in a certain way. It's like a Nazi state or a communist type of way of dealing with an issue." And he contends the bill has enforced the homosexual agenda on children in the state. "What the homosexual movement has done with ... SB 48 [and] in general, in calling for equality, what they're calling for is special rights," the pro-family group spokesman notes. "We don't have special things in education to teach people to change history based on a particular Christian worldview or Muslim worldview, but they go beyond that."

CALIFORNIA: Haters To Begin Petition Drive To Overturn Gay History Bill

Anti-gay forces in California have been granted permission to begin gathering the petition signatures to place a repeal of the LGBT history bill on the June 2012 ballot. Via Karen Ocamb:

SB 48 is a natural extension of Harvey Milk Day, requiring public schools to stop discriminating against LGBT people by rendering the LGBT minority invisible in public education. The bill requires schools to start teaching about LGBT history and contributions starting Jan. 1, 2012. Inclusion in California textbooks has been deferred until 2015 because of the economy. If CRI’s “coalition” gathers 504,000 valid signatures by mid-October and does qualify – the initiative would be placed on the June 2012 ballot. That’s the date for the Primary in California and CRI’s Republican base accounts for 30% of registered voters in California. Theoretically, that means the initiative would have to pass with heavy support from Independents and Democrats.

LOS ANGELES: Prosecutors Seek To Ban Gay Panic Defense In King Case

Prosecutors in the trial of Brandon McInerney plan to ask the judge to have the jury disregard the sexual orientation of his murder victim, openly gay teen Lawrence King.

Attorneys for Brandon McInerney argue that their client, who was 14 when he gunned down Larry King in an Oxnard junior high school computer lab, was so humiliated by King's flirtation that it provoked him to kill his classmate. Gay rights advocates say the argument is a classic "gay panic" defense. The panic defense became a flashpoint following the 2002 slaying of Gwen Araujo, a Bay Area transgender teen who was beaten and strangled by three men. Defense attorneys for the suspects argued that their clients panicked after learning Araujo was a biological male and won a mistrial. When the suspects escaped first-degree murder convictions, legislators responded by passing a law designed to blunt the use of panic defenses.

McInerney's defense attorney maintains that the murder was "provoked" by King's "relentless sexual advances."

Stephen Colbert - It Gets Better

MINNESOTA: School District To Be Sued For Blocking Bullying Education

Randy Thomasson: It May Take Another Civil War To Stop Gay Brainwashing

"We can harken back to our American revolution. The Declaration of Independence has a long list of sayings that the colonists were lobbying King George III about, but King George III just kept coming back with more and more taxes, he didn’t listen. So they said, well, you know what, it’s our right to alter or dissolve the government. And that’s what we’re doing, we’re declaring independence. We’re not there yet but I tell you what if we don’t start voting different and telling people how to vote and if pastors don’t repent and teach people how to vote Christianly, then we’re heading to toward a real civil war I’m afraid." - Randy Thomasson, head of the hate group Save California.

CALIFORNIA: Hate Group Launches Petition Drive To Repeal History Bill

The anti-gay Christianist hate group Capital Resource Institute filed the paperwork yesterday to launch a petition drive to place a referendum item on the 2012 ballot which would repeal California's just-approved LGBT history bill.

The Capitol Resource Institute is a hard-line, socially conservative organization that has long opposed efforts in California to expand rights for the LGBT population. Backers eventually would have to collect 433,971 signatures to allow voters to decide whether to keep the law in place or reject it. [Spokesman Paulo] Sibaja said that a coalition has formed behind the proposed measure, though he would not name the other members. He said a news conference Wednesday would give more details. When asked how the group planned to fund the referendum, he said, "That's what the press conference will be about."

(Tipped by JMG reader Steve)

Mitchell Gold Vs. Peter Sprigg

Family Research Council spokesdouche Peter Sprigg, who has publicly called for recriminalizing homosexuality and for "exporting" gay Americans to other countries, is given airtime by Fox News in a debate with activist Mitchell Gold about California's newly approved LGBT history bill.