 |
| Billy Porter wearing 'the dress.' |
The news that openly gay actor Billy Porter will be making an appearance on Sesame Street has inflamed a few members of the religious right. The fact that the Emmy, Grammy, and Tony-award winning star will also be wearing the gown he stopped traffic with at last year's Oscar telecast provides an added bitter taste in their mouths.
So naturally, hate group the Family Research Council and its president Tony Perkins has weighed in with a sad attempt to both demonize the transgender community and distort Porter's words about the situation:
In the transgender debate, even Bert and Ernie are puppets for the Left! Incredibly, "Sesame Street," the once-beloved kids' show, is making the best case for defunding PBS yet: inviting drag queen Billy Porter on to teach kids the virtues of gender confusion.
Wearing a "tuxedo dress," Porter, the star of Kinky Boots, has already been tweeting about the appearance.
"I was tickled to meet Elmo and the gang," he posted. Parents, on the other hand, aren't nearly so thrilled. More than 55,000 have signed a LifeSite petition calling on the network to drop the episode. "By contributing to this social contagion, ‘Sesame Street' is forcing children to deal with adult concepts and notions about sexuality which are beyond their level of maturity, and which can leave psychological scars. Many jurisdictions define this kind of behavior as abuse... We are demanding the producers of 'Sesame Street' stop this attack on children and their innocence."
When word of the backlash made its way to Porter, he hit back at parents. "Stay out of my bedroom, and you'll be fine. That is none of your business." Leave the bedroom out of our children's shows, and it won't be our business. That's what moms and dads object to. It wasn't that long ago that LGBT activists were trying to get the government out of their private lives. Now they want to throw their private lives into our faces, our children's faces, and every classroom in between. Personally, I don't want to know what Billy Porter -- or anyone else -- does in private. I do, however, care if it's flaunted in front of my kids.
Like most activists, Porter could care less. "I'm a part of the first generation of gay men, ever, who gets to be out loud and proud in the world," he said. "My generation is the first. B**ches are scared. And they should be."
For PBS, though, this is all par for its liberal course. Taxpayers have fought for years to stop the government's broadcasting arm from sexualizing kids on everything from the Muppets to "Sesame Street." When Donald Trump became president, one of the first things his budget proposed slashing was the $445 million for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. His latest version, just released this week, tries again.
Liberals always plead with Republicans to lay off Burt and Ernie, but what they really mean is -- don't stop funding the Left's free microphone! For years, NPR and PBS have taken advantage of the airwaves to spout their radical agenda. And in the end, taxpayers are the ones who've been played. But now that PBS has shown that it can't be trusted, it's time for Big Bird's liberal friends to feather their own nest!
It's so pathetic how Perkins and FRC attempts to connect this non-controversy with their fake outrage du jour - the transgender community. It's equally pathetic how he distorts Porter's response to the so-called outrage in an attempt to appeal to the tired homophobic tropes about us "sexualizing children" and "throwing out private lives in people's faces."
This is the part of Porter's response which Perkins omitted:
“If you don’t like it, don’t watch it,” adding that he thinks it’s odd that people would even make the mental leap from his dress to “perverted demon sex.”
“Like, what about me singing with a penguin [on the show] has anything to do with what I’m doing in my bedroom?” the “Pose” star posed to us at L’Avenue at Saks, where he was hosting a party for the restaurant’s first anniversary.
“The really interesting thing for me is that that’s what it’s all about when it comes to LGBTQ people — the first thing everyone wants to talk about is how we having sex.”
He added, “Stay out of my bedroom and you will be fine — that is none of your business.”
Plainly speaking, Perkins and his supporters can dredge up illicit sexual fantasies in their minds about the LGBTQ community any time they want. But they don't have the right to make us conform to their false ideas of who we are.
And they don't have the right to erase our rights, safety, families, humanity or dignity.