More on the Postcards from Buster outrage where the new Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, in her first official act, threatened to pull the plug on funding the show because one of its episodes had Buster visiting a child being raised by two women living together in Vermont.
It turns out that Postcards from Buster was created as a “direct response to a request” from the Ready to Learn program, which is administered by PBS on behalf of the very same Department of Education, for a show about “diversity and tolerance in modern America for school-age children.”
In the 40 Buster episodes that were made, families have included Muslims, Orthodox Jews, Mormons and evangelical Christians.
So, Spellings's Department of Education wants "tolerance," just not tolerance of same sex civil unions where they are legal.
What's even more troubling is PBS's rolling over on this. Talk about self-censorship! How much quality children's TV programming will now never be made because TV producers are afraid to take money from the Department of Education and subject themselves to that agency's unwritten and whimsical definitions of "morality" and "tolerance?"
If you're a parent, this sorry censoring by Spellings should make you afraid for your children, not reassured. For free expression in this country, a core value every parent teaches his child, is under attack by those in power responsible for our nation's educational system.
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