OKLAHOMA CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has vetoed taxpayer funding for the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA), the state network which carries Oklahoma’s PBS affiliate, citing the public broadcaster’s promotion of LGBT themes to children.
Fox News reports that Stitt vetoed legislation to renew OETA’s status as the state’s public broadcaster for the next two and a half years, meaning it will be dropped from Oklahoma television on July 1.
“I don’t think Oklahomans want to use their tax dollars to indoctrinate kids,” Stitt argued at a press conference. “And some of the stuff that they’re showing, it just overly sexualizes our kids.” He added that OETA, “to me, is an outdated system. It may have had its place in 1957. Why are we spending taxpayer dollars to prop up the OETA? It makes no sense to me.”
“If you want to watch that, that’s fine,” the governor said. “But why am I using taxpayer dollars to prop that up? I don’t think we need that and I’m glad to veto that bill.”
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PBS carries a number of shows that have long been cultural icons in early childhood education and entertainment. But as LifeSiteNews has covered, over the past several years it has taken steps to normalize homosexuals relationships and parenting in those shows, including Sesame Street, Arthur, and Clifford the Big Red Dog.
Sesame Street has also promoted COVID-19 vaccines for children, and as for PBS’s adult programming, a 2019 Frontline documentary caught criticism for promoting abortion as a practice that can bring about a “sense of peace.” In 2021, a since-fired PBS attorney was caught on undercover video wishing death on Republican voters and suggesting their children should be seized and put in “re-education camps.”
While PBS is technically a private nonprofit financed primarily by viewer donations, an estimated 15% of its funding comes from the federal government, through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Last year, Congress approved $525 million in advanced funding to the CPB for 2024, a $50 million increase from the amount approved for 2023.
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