#2674 (5/17) "Taxpayer-Funded PBS Promotes Far-Left Agenda to Kids"

"TAXPAYER-FUNDED PBS PROMOTES FAR-LEFT AGENDA TO KIDS" - Tony Perkins / @tperkins / May 16, 2019 / https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/05/16/taxpayer-funded-pbs-promotes-far-left-agenda-to-kids [AS I SEE IT: PBS (as well as NPR) have been guilty of pushing a liberal, anti-family agenda for decades. It's about time the public stopped supporting their efforts with their tax dollars. Thankfully, President Trump has finally been a preident who has done  something towards that end. - Stan]

     In the 22nd season of "Arthur," Mr. Ratburn walks down the aisle on the arm of an aardvark named Patrick. (Photo: Screenshot from PBSkids.org)
     “Arthur” isn’t just the longest-running cartoon series on television—it’s also the most controversial. That’s all thanks to PBS, who’s spent the last umpteen years using its half-billion taxpayer dollars promoting the agenda of the far left. Now, apparently, that agenda includes pitching same-sex marriage to kids as young as 4—and using one of their favorite characters to do it.

   The episode, part of “Arthur’s” 22nd season, is called “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone.” Naturally, Mr. Ratburn’s third-grade students (and every child watching) thinks that “special someone” is a female. So imagine their surprise when Mr. Ratburn walks down the aisle on the arm of an aardvark named Patrick. The show cuts to Arthur, who’s still trying to process the idea. Then suddenly, he and his friends break into happy smiles.
   One parent who tuned in contrasted the characters’ reaction to her own children’s. “The [cartoon] children are a bit surprised but mostly nonchalant about the whole thing. Needless to say, in the real world, our children were shocked and confused.”

   Of course they are. The target audience for the show is pre-school and elementary kids. They barely know the alphabet—let alone L-G-B-T.

   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 was slashing the $445 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The left always pleads with Republicans to lay off Bert 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 that have been puppets—for the left. 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.
   “Remember,” the Family Research Council’s Cathy Ruse says, “Americans didn’t ask for a re-definition of marriage. It was forced on them by activist judges, who overturned tens of millions of votes cast to keep marriage a man-woman institution. But gay activists are not satisfied with just changing the law—people must change their beliefs, too. There can be no dissent. Children are not asking for their cartoon characters to be gay—activists in the entertainment industry are forcing it on them.”

   Which is all the more ironic, considering how “impressionable” liberals say kids are when it comes to something like religion. Out in Pennsylvania, secularists were hyperventilating that students had been exposed to the words “God Bless America.” They’re too susceptible to messages like that, they said. They might be overly affected by the idea of faith, they argued.
   
    But throw a same-sex wedding in a popular cartoon, or pornographic sex ed material in the classroom, or Drag Queen Story Hour at the local library, and somehow it’s perfectly OK. That’s the double standard of liberal activism. It’s fine to indoctrinate kids—as long as they’re the ones doing the indoctrinating.

   Moms and dads, be warned. “Children’s entertainment is no longer informed by a Judeo-Christian values system, but by left-wing political interest groups,” Ruse cautions. “Now more than ever, parents have to be vigilant about the media their children consume. Parents trust shows made for children, and the creators of the show are taking advantage of their trust.”
   Thanks to today’s technology, there’s no reason to sit your kids in front of live TV and wait for messages like this to assault them. If you’ve run out of “VeggieTales” and are looking for shows you can trust, don’t give PBS a second thought. Try a Christian media provider like JellyTelly.

[italics and colored emphasis mine]

Tony Perkins is president of the Family Research Council. [Originally published in Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, which is written with the aid of Family Research Council senior writers.]
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"Sheltering Little Aardvarks" - by G. Shane Morris, Breakpoint.org, May 15, 2019, http://www.breakpoint.org/2019/05/sheltering-little-aardvarks/

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PRAYER MATTERS:

"To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against 

the disorder of the world. -  Karl Barth

"Prayer is inviting God into a seemingly impossible situation and trusting/resting in His love and grace to accomplish His perfect will in His perfect time and for His greatest glory. Intercession is the one of the great privileges AND responsibilities for EVERY believer." - Stan

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     On the world’s second-largest continent, Christians throughout Africa are enduring severe persecution. In May, Open Doors is focusing on African believers suffering from both oppression
and physical violence. Please join us in praying with our brothers and sisters in these places where peace is elusive and conflict is ever-present.
May 17 | SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES - Praise God for an in-house discipleship program for
teenagers supported by Open Doors. Ask God to strengthen these young men.
*Names changed to protect identities