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NEW YORK, September 21, 2018, (LifeSiteNews) – The series of breaking news stories at the LGBT-oriented The Advocate Magazine’s website says it all about the LGBT world's push to normalize homosexuality through the appropriation of cultural icons: At 1:29 PM Tuesday, an Advocate headline blared: “‘Sesame Street’ Writer: Bert and Ernie Are a ‘Loving Couple.’”  

Two hours later, at 3:34, a follow-up story was headlined, “Despite Writer’s Revelation, Sesame Street’ Denies Bert & Ernie Are Gay.”

Then at 4:58, less than an hour and a half later, the Advocate put the final nail in the homosexual Muppet rumor coffin:  “‘Sesame Street’: Bert and Ernie Are ‘Best Friends,’ Not Lovers.” 

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In a photo illustrating the first piece, the two celebrity Muppets hug each other.  In the next, they are pictured side-by-side. In the third — which delivered the gut-wrenching bad blow to the LGBT world — they are seated far apart enough on a couch that Elmo can squeeze in between them.

Set up for disappointment

A former Sesame Street writer set up the LGBT world for disappointment when he said he based the characters of Muppet live-in buddies Bert and Ernie on his own homosexual relationship.

Mark Saltzman wrote scripts and songs for Sesame Street from 1985 to 1998, and told Queerty* magazine Sunday he patterned Bert on his live-in long-term lover, film editor Arnold Glassman, and Ernie on himself.

But while Saltzman’s admission evoked cries of vindication from the LGBT movement that the longstanding rumors were true, Sesame Street Workshop and Muppet creator Frank Oz swiftly denied that Bert and Ernie are “gay.”

“I created Bert. I know what and who he is,” tweeted Oz, the actor and puppeteer who, along with the late Jim Henson, co-created many Muppet characters, and who played Bert to Henson’s Ernie.

And Oz dismissed a Twitter observation that “characters often evolve beyond their creators intentions, though” with: “Oh come on….”

In the ensuing heated Twitter discussion, Oz felt the need to clarify further: “When I wrote “They’re not, of course”, did you think I was saying something like, ‘They’re straight like everyone else.’? What I was actually saying was ‘They’re not, of course. Jim [Henson] and I never created them to be gay’. Just a misunderstanding. Thanks for for [sic] the discussion.”

Likewise, Sesame Workshop countered Saltzman’s revelations by tweeting that Bert and Ernie are “puppets and do not have a sexual orientation.” That tweet appears to have been deleted.

But they have to be ‘gay’!

A 4th article — a commentary — appeared on The Advocate website the following day:  The Problem With Saying Bert and Ernie Are Not Gay, lamenting assertions from Oz and Sesame Street that the famous Muppets do not suffer from same-sex attraction. 

By repeatedly insisting their characters are not gay, like Liberace publicists of yesteryear, Sesame Workshop has inadvertently fallen into these culture wars of politicizing LGBTQ inclusion. This is perhaps why the organization deleted its remarks from Twitter and replaced them with another with more carefully worded language.

Sesame Street went from being rainbow heroes to straight zeros in the space of a single day, and now find themselves being accused of being on the politically incorrect side of the culture wars. 

Even Abe Lincoln was ‘gay’

Over the years, the LGBT world has tried to paint not only puppets but many historical figures as ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian,’ based solely on wishful thinking and flimsy evidence.  The goal is the normalization of homosexuality.

The Advocate commentary cites Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet which claims many of  the celebrities from Hollywood’s glory days were ‘gay.’  

The FBI’s famous first director, J. Edgar Hoover, was popularly portrayed as not only homosexual but as an occasional drag queen. 

And an entire book — The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln — devotes 343 pages  to outing President Abraham Lincoln as a closeted ‘gay.’ 

Homosexual writers have asserted that the Old Testament’s David and Jonathan were homosexual lovers

And Fr. James Martin, SJ, an outspoken proponent of the normalization of homosexuality and transgenderism within the Catholic Church famously sent out a Tweet last year, saying, “Some saints were probably gay or lesbian. Which ones? Hard, even impossible, to say. But if a certain percentage of people are gay or lesbian, then some are surely among the Communion of Saints.”

LGBT world in first stage of grief:  Denial

The Advocate commentary concluded:

There is nothing strange about coming to the conclusion that Bert and Ernie might be a gay couple. In fact, it's logical. They are two male characters who have lived together and felt comfortable bathing in front of each other for decades. Connect the dots. 

What is strange are the repeated denials, which tap into a sad history of erasure and suggest a discomfort with having queer characters in children's entertainment. The truth is that Bert and Ernie are gay, because that is how they have been embraced by LGBTQ culture. And no amount of press releases or denials will change that.

For now, the LGBT world appears locked in the first of the five stages of grief:  Denial.  Expect ‘Anger to erupt any day now.

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Doug Mainwaring is a journalist for LifeSiteNews, an author, and a marriage, family and children's rights activist.  He has testified before the United States Congress and state legislative bodies, originated and co-authored amicus briefs for the United States Supreme Court, and has been a guest on numerous TV and radio programs.  Doug and his family live in the Washington, DC suburbs.