Alabama is in the news a lot lately. It’s one of these states with stricter abortion laws than Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. But while kids in Alabama are never too young to birth the children of their rapist, they are apparently too young to know that gay people exist.
The first episode of the 22nd season of the kids’s TV show Arthur features the character Mr Ratburn marrying his aardvark partner, Patrick. Alabama Public Television refused to run the epsiode. Instead they showed an old episode, and announced it had no plans to show the premiere.
In a statement to AL.com, APT programming director McKenzie explained the broadcaster’s decision to not air the episode.
“Although we strongly encourage parents to watch television with their children and talk about what they have learned afterwards – parents trust that their children can watch APT without their supervision. We also know that children who are younger than the “target” audience for Arthur also watch the program.”
In 2005, an episode of an Arthur spinoff, Postcards from Buster, was pulled by APT because it featured a girl with two moms. APT didn’t run that episode either, citing the same “trust with parents.”
Arthur creator Marc Brown responded a day later:
“I’m really proud of that episode. And I will defend it to anybody who wants to talk about it. Why shouldn’t their teacher marry another man? We all know people who are gay, who are trans, and it’s something that is socially acceptable. Why is there this discomfort that it takes a leap into our national media?
I don’t want children or people who are different to feel excluded. That’s not the kind of world we want to live in. And we want children to be educated so they can see there’s not just one type of family. Everyone should feel represented. I think we did that with Arthur.”