Sesame Street to Introduce HIV-Positive Muppet

[Buck-Beaver]

I generally don't wade in to these sorts of raging debates and certainly don't discuss my religion alot, but I've read your hateful and inflammatory posts and well-intended but misguided holier-than-thou righteous schtick with an increasing sense of alarm and outrage, both as a human being and a Christian.

Ed, as person who values free speech as one of the basic tenants of freedom and democracy I say you are entitled to your own opinion, however ignorant, poorly reasoned and thoroughly stupid it may be.

However, as a normally accepting and tolerant Christian (and on behalf of accepting and tolerant Christians everywhere) I'm compelled to say please sit down and shut up.

Ed said:

Jesus said not to specifically judge a perso of sin, not to judge an action as a sin. I have only stated actions that are sins, not anyone who has committed them. With your spin, nothing would be wrong and there would be no way to hve morals, aka situational ethics. That is not what the BIble teaches at all. I also do not aplogize when I have done or said nothing wrong.

You are cloaking ignorance and intolerance in the robes of God something that is a terrible affront to Christianity. You are using the general to attack the specific. To say your are only citing examples of immoral behavior is frankly B.S.

Your agrument is inherently contradictory. You say in one breath Jesus said not to judge an action as sin. That's very true. But in the next sentance you say that you want to cite actions that are sins.

What's that? That's the sound of someone trying to dig himself out of what he knows is quickly deepening hole.

Unless something happened when I was out, you haven't supplanted God yet Ed. So unless I'm wrong please go back, reread the bible and pay special attention to the new testament because there is a few hundred pages that specifically address why what you are doing here should not be.

The bible does contain several passages which declares homosexuality immoral. It also contains several passages condoning slavery. How do we judge what's what? We must always act and think with the most precious, important and fundamental tenant of Christianity in mind - to accept and love those we have issue with.

To love those like us is easy, to withold judgement of those unlike us is hard. That is the challenge we have as Christians, one we all too often fail to succeed at.

I am friends with a great many gay people who are honest, loving, caring and beautiful people - people to whom it would never occur to say some of the unfortunate, spiteful things the likes of which you have said in this forum. Whether or not you, I or anyone else agrees with their lifestyle is totally irrelevant. If they harm no one, their choices, beliefs and decisions are between God and themselves, no one else. Being Christian does not bestow anyone with the right to pass judgement on anyone on religious or moral grounds and doing so is simply arrogant presumption.

I know you will insist that you are not judging, but you are in fact by your words and actions. Do you really believe that your misguided sense of moral superiority justifies your behavior? If so I'm sorry that you have yet to come to full understanding and appreciation of your own religion.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Originally posted by Special_Ed
I assumed you used the online dictionary because I already went there and compaired your post.

But do you have a thurough dictionary or just a cheapy type?

It doesn't state that everyone is a fetish, but erotic things that get's them in the mood are. If homosexuality gets them in the mood then it's a fetish. It's the best dictionary out there because it's a true dictionary in Webster's own words with definitions that wre used for hundreds of years. It's our recent culture that has tried to change them.

Does this mean hetrosexuality is a fetish too? lol

Using Webster's dictionary to defend a religious position - this keeps getting sillier and sillier - poor Ed, tricks are for kids!

 

[trekkie1701E]

<Trekkie-- thanks for joining the discussion and sharing your experiences. Sesame Street has long made a habit of including children and adults with disablities and it is one of the things I love about the show.>

Thanks! I have great memories of Sesame Street and I still hold the show very close to my heart. I also consider the years I had surrounding it -- Unique and very fun experiences in special ed at elementary school -- the greatest of my life. So, Sesame Street has that much more meaning -- Compassion, admiration, love -- for me.

Daniel

 

[Special_Ed]

Buck the Beaver,

It alarms me that many Christians in this country have become so desensitized to what is right and wrong that they would rather look the other way than face what the Bible says and live what it teaches.

I have never said anything hateful or judgemental.

You are saying that we were never told what actions constitue as sins, which is totally wrong. I am calling the actions as they are classified in the scriptures.

The Bible does not condone slavery. I suppose you'll also argue that it condones polygamy. Everything in the Bible, such as these topics, were only played out for a set period of time to full fill God's purpose. For example, the multiple wives issue was only carried out in order to build the Earth's population up. When things became of no more use to God's purpose they were stated as such. Homosexuality was never condoned in the Bible and out right called for what it is, a sin.

I do love my neighbor, I just don't care for things they do. Just because I am tolerent of other people does not mean that I have to accept what they do as being moral.

I assume you are also one of the breed who feels it's wrong to preach the gospel to other people, in fear of hurting their feelings and shattering their religious views?

I used Webster's dictionary because Noah Webster was a strong Christian man and the father of definitions. It would do you good to learn more about him.

 

[Janice & Mokey's Man]

Hey everybody, I think we Muppet fans should all keep a look-out on the internet!

I have been to two message boards already that have erupted in this SS topic, and they have false information!!

One board I went to has a thread that's titled, "Sesame Street is sooooooo dirty! They are bringing an AIDS puppet to the show! Unclean!"

People like that clearly do not know the facts of what is actually goin' on. At both boards that have had these reactions, I have posted messages straightenin' things out and tellin' 'em the real facts behind the story---one poster didn't even bother to say it was only in South Africa for now!---if he even knew that.

So I urge everyone to keep your eyes open at other boards you visit, and post the real information on what is goin' on here in case you see this story bein' mangled.

 

[MuppetQuilter]

Originally posted by Janice &amp; Mokey's Man

So I urge everyone to keep your eyes open at other boards you visit, and post the real information on what is goin' on here in case you see this story bein' mangled. [/B]

Thanks for the heads up. This story really has gotten misrepresented all over the place.

 

[Janice & Mokey's Man]

Originally posted by MuppetQuilter
Thanks for the heads up. This story really has gotten misrepresented all over the place.

It sure has...I'm just tryin' to make sure we all keep lookouts at our "other boards"!

 

[trekkie1701E]

Alright, Special_Ed & everyone, let's not start a holy war ! Some people believe "every" word in the bible while others do not. You either believe it or you don't. Even if you don't believe everything, it doesn't make you a bad christian.
I still believe in what we all heard as younger kids, "If you're good, you'll go to Heaven; If you're bad, you'll go to ****."
We're all only human.

Daniel

 

[Luke]

Originally posted by Phillip Chapman
The imminent issue isn't how a gay couple would or would not be appropriate on Sesame Street or anywhere else for that matter. We've discussed that topic for a day now. Let's agree to disagree, but with MUTUAL RESPECT for the people who share different opinions.

I agree that the whole 'HIV' topic is getting somewhat lesser attention than the 'gay' scenario but i also don't agree that this isn't a valid connected issue. If the Sesame Street producers anywhere in the world are looking at introducing controversial adult topics into childrens television then it's very valid indeed to question whether a gay person/muppet could be introduced and would be a right or wrong move. Both are potential 'hot potatoes' in the media, both are adult subjects not usually discussed at this level, both are ideas that could theoretically be 'workable' in some scaled down way to a producer intent on handling these kinda subjects. If half the population of South Africa were homosexual rather than HIV and they wanted to educate little kids about how different people have different feelings then can you honestly say that they wouldn't have introduced a Muppet who felt that way too ? I doubt it !

I think the thing to warn people about, rather than steering them off any undesirable topic, is for people to watch carefully what they say in relation to others. In other words, if you have strong opinions then fine state them, but use that MUTUAL RESPECT we are always talking about to judge how you state them in relation to the other people that are also here on the board. I think Special Ed especially has been guilty of going full steam ahead and using pretty strong words like 'birth defect' when he blatently knows how people are going to react to that. I do agree that is definitely NOT the way forward but I also think to an extent we need to be able to discuss this here without having to stick rigidly to what was said in the news reports - after all, it's also going on at every other 'news' message board and be handled ok so it'd be a shame if the most well known 'Muppet' one couldn't handle it.

 

[FellowWLover]

I do love my neighbor, I just don't care for things they do. Just because I am tolerent of other people does not mean that I have to accept what they do as being moral.

And here we get to the heart of the matter...

Do we have to grant others a blanket of morality for them to consider that we are "tolerant" of their activities? Is one's own morality compromised if one stands silently by and does not speak out against what one considers to be immoral behavior?

Moral dilemmas such as these stretch into everyday life. If Ed believes the homosexuality is a sin, I will also wager that he believes it would be sinful as well for him not to try to shed light on the subject. Some Christians believe that active evangelizing (as in preaching the gospel) is the duty of true Christians.

It is indeed a tricky wire to walk. Is Ed truly tolerant? Or is his strong feeling about the morality of homosexual behavior discrimination in itself?