U.S.
Education
Secretary
Margaret
Spellings
triggered
a
national
debate
over
gay
content
in
children’s
television
programming
last
week
when
she
criticized
an
episode
of
the
popular
TV
program
“Postcards
From
Buster”
for
depicting
children
with
lesbian
mothers.
The
Public
Broadcasting
System,
which
distributes
the
“Buster”
program
to
local
public
television
stations,
announced
it
would
withhold
the
release
of
the
episode
with
the
lesbian
mothers,
saying
the
episode
failed
to
properly
cover
a
“sensitive
issue.”
A
PBS
official
said
the
public
television
network
made
that
decision
hours
before
it
received
a
Jan.
25
letter
from
Spellings
saying
the
Department
of
Education
has
“strong
and
very
serious
concerns”
about
the
episode.
“Many
parents
would
not
want
their
young
children
exposed
to
the
lifestyles
portrayed
in
this
episode,”
Spellings
said
in
her
letter,
which
the
department
released
to
the
news
media.
John
Wilson,
the
PBS
senior
vice
president
for
programming,
said
Spellings’
letter
had
nothing
to
do
with
PBS’
decision
to
withhold
the
episode.
But
entertainment
industry
observers
questioned
that
assertion,
noting
that
Spellings
told
PBS
in
her
letter
that
the
government
wanted
a
“refund”
for
its
partial
funding
of
the
“Buster”
episode
if
PBS
decided
to
air
it.
Spellings
also
said
Congress
did
not
intend
to
use
government
funding
“to
introduce
this
kind
of
subject
matter
to
children.”
The
flap
over
the
“Buster”
episode
came
less
than
a
month
after
the
conservative
Christian
group
Focus
on
the
Family
charged
that
another
children’s
cartoon
figure,
SpongeBob
SquarePants,
was
being
used
by
gay
rights
advocates
to
promote
gay
rights
through
the
guise
of
“diversity.”
The
creator
of
the
SpongeBob
SquarePants
cartoon
disputed
this
claim,
saying
Focus
on
the
Family
misconstrued
the
program,
which
merely
supports
tolerance
and
understanding
of
all
people.
The
“Buster”
series
features
an
animated,
8-year-old
rabbit
named
Buster
Baxter
who
travels
with
his
father
to
communities
throughout
the
U.S.
and
Canada,
where
he
meets
children
of
different
cultures,
religions
and
ethnic
backgrounds.
The
children
and
families
Buster
meets
are
real
rather
than
animated.
In
the
episode
in
question,
Buster
and
his
father
travel
to
Vermont
to
learn
how
maple
sugar
and
cheese
are
made.
The
real-life
children
in
two
homes
that
Buster
visits
introduce
him
to
their
parents,
who
consist
of
two
pairs
of
moms,
before
the
families
show
him
how
to
make
syrup
and
cheese.
Public
television
station
WGBH
of
Boston,
which
produces
the
‘Buster’
program,
said
it
would
defy
both
Spellings
and
PBS
by
distributing
the
episode
with
the
lesbian
mothers
to
any
station
that
requests
it.
So
far,
24
stations
out
of
the
249-station
PBS
network
have
agreed
to
show
the
program,
including
stations
in
New
York,
California,
Vermont,
and
Pennsylvania.
The
public
television
stations
in
D.C.,
Maryland
and
Virginia,
including
D.C.’s
WETA-Channel
26,
said
they
would
not
broadcast
the
episode.
“The
point
of
this
Vermont
episode
was
not
to
explore
alternative
family
structures,”
said
Wilson,
the
PBS
vice
president.
“The
point
of
the
Vermont
episode
was
to
go
to
Vermont
and
literally
see
what
that
corner
of
the
world
is.”
Wilson
added,
“It
just
became
increasingly
clear
to
us
that
the
context
of
the
family
where
Buster
was
going
to
visit,
the
family
structure
…
continued
to
intrude
into
the
foreground
and
really
obscured
what
the
actual
point
of
the
program
was,”
prompting
PBS
to
scrap
the
episode.
Although
distributed
by
PBS,
the
‘Buster’
program
is
produced
by
the
Boston
public
television
station
WGBH-TV.
Bridgid
Sullivan,
WGBH’s
vice
president
for
children’s
programming,
defended
the
episode
with
the
lesbian
mothers,
saying
it
was
in
keeping
with
a
Department
of
Education
request
for
children’s
programs
that
depict
America’s
diversity.
Sullivan
told
the
Washington
Post
that
the
department
stated
in
an
official
request
for
proposals
for
children’s
programming
that
it
was
seeking
TV
programs
to
help
children
“understand
and
respect
differences
and
learn
to
live
in
a
multicultural
society.”
She
told
the
Post
that
in
the
course
of
producing
40
episodes
of
“Buster,”
the
program
has
introduced
the
Buster
character
to
Mormons
in
Utah,
Hmong
immigrants
in
Wisconsin,
a
Pentecostal
Christian
family,
Orthodox
Jewish
families,
and
Muslim
children
and
their
parents.
“[I]t
was
our
intention
to
include,
not
to
exclude,
anyone
who
is
part
of
our
society,
and
for
children
to
see
a
reflection
of
themselves
on
TV
is
an
important
part
of
their
development,”
she
told
the
Post.
The
Gay
&
Lesbian
Alliance
Against
Defamation
and
the
Human
Rights
Campaign
issued
statements
criticizing
Spellings
for
speaking
out
against
the
depiction
of
gays
on
an
important
television
program
in
one
of
her
first
official
acts,
even
before
she
was
sworn
in
as
secretary.
President
Bush
named
Spellings
to
head
the
Education
Department
in
December.
She
was
sworn
in
to
her
new
post
on
Jan.
31.
Joan
M.
Garry,
GLAAD’s
executive
director,
said
Spellings’
letter
to
PBS
contains
language
suggesting
that
she
intends
to
use
the
Department
of
Education’s
funding
...
