Mr. Ratburn comes out as gay

[Sestak]

That's really stupid

No it's not. There will be tens (hundreds?) of thousands of kids who watch this and later turn out to be LGBTQ, and for those who come from anti-LGBTQ families, it may be their only exposure to the idea that it's OK to be gay.

It's a children's cartoon, I don't want a cartoon flaunting sexuality, I want them to be entertaining to my (hypothetical) children, not teach them the message of social justice. 

So you don't want any straight characters in any cartoon? Really??

I don't want the characters sexuality to be known in a cartoon? Why? Because it doesn't matter for god's sake.

Do you have any idea how many weddings we had on our elementary school playground?  Hell, I got married and divorced all within a half hour in fifth grade...and the entire grade showed up for it.  The flower girls even got in trouble for picking grass and had to sit by the door for 5 minutes.

Your reaction is abnormal and your attitude will hurt your hopefully hypothetical children.

Yeah, interest in/curiosity about romance is completely normal for children and the idea that it isn't, is only ever trotted out to legitimize people's homophobic """corruption of the innocent""" attitudes.

Speaking of which...

Alabama Public Television (APT) has refused to broadcast a cartoon which shows a same-sex wedding.

The first episode of the 22nd series of children's programme Arthur features the character Mr Ratburn marrying his partner, Patrick.

...

Programming director Mike McKenzie said broadcasting it would break parents' trust in the network.

In a statement, Mr McKenzie said "parents trust that their children can watch APT without their supervision", and that children "younger than the 'target' audience" might watch without parental knowledge.

Alabunga strikes again!