Sesame Street Message of Inclusion and Kindness Celebrating Pride Month Elicits Conservative Christian Backlash

It seemed innocent enough, a post from “Sesame Street” saying “Together, let’s build a world where every person and family feels loved and respected for who they are,” and emphasizing that “On our street, everyone is welcome.” A sweet message of love, kindness and inclusion from a beloved TV series that has been keeping children company for over half a century. But that wasn’t the part of the post that caused gorges to rise in conservative Christian circles across the land. It was the final three words: “Happy #PrideMonth.”

It’s not like Sesame Street was alone in its acknowledgment of the month. Pro football teams (@BuffaloBills: “This Pride month, and always, we’re proud to stand with the LGBTQ+ community”) and Major League Baseball  (“Everybody’s game. #PRIDE” with its logo enhanced with a rainbow) have also posted viral messages.  Levi’s, Converse and Abercrombie & Fitch all have released special Pride Month collections.  And Nancy Sinatra posted a rainbow boot, harking back to her big hit, “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’”—which came out three years before Sesame Street’s premiere.

But somehow, children being taught to be tolerant and kind didn’t sit well with Christian commentator Jim Denison of the Denison Forum.

In an article published shortly after Sesame Street’s post, Denison said the annual month celebrating love has led the show’s producers to “once again [seek] to influence children with LGBTQ ideology.”

“This year, their characters form a rainbow as they clasp each other’s hands beside the post,” wrote Denison, who then proceeded to quote the rest of the post, which could be mistaken for the words of the Savior Himself

He said the message had been worded in such a manner as to make any objections “feel irrational or even hateful.”

He’s right about that. It DOES feel irrational or even hateful. 

Even un-Christian.

But Dr. Denison is far from alone. The anti-gay agenda has fueled the Christian Right since the late 1970s when singer Anita Bryant switched from selling orange juice to decrying homosexuals as deviants and evil people who actively recruited our children to their ranks because they couldn’t reproduce. Groups popped up bearing monikers like the Moral Majority and Concerned Women in America. 

Then, as the century turned, the internet and mass media gave a more powerful national megaphone to groups such as Focus on the Family, an entity existing solely to attack the “radical homosexual agenda.” 

But attitudes change and people, being people, would rather be at peace than at war. So as public opinion shifted to more tolerance of such things as same-sex marriage (SSM) and when the Supreme Court overturned state bans on SSM in 2015, the Christian Right morphed again, this time waving the banner of religious freedom as a way to refuse to provide services for SSMs and, in some cases, open the gates to further discrimination.

The duel continues to this day with Big Bird & Company finding themselves the unlikely focal point of the warfare. The happy little post elicited such predictable venomous retorts as “Sesame Groomers,” Leave the kids alone—Sickening,” “When is straight month?” “Creepy,” “Gross” and “No.” 

The comments in support of the children’s show’s post tend to be less monosyllabic: 

“Thank you for acknowledging that families can be made up in many different ways.”  

“My kids watched only Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers on weekdays. Coincidentally, they both are kind, successful adults.”

“It’s a children’s show. Children live in many types of families; single-parent homes, living with relatives because mom and Dad can’t care for them (for any variety of reasons), two moms, two dads…They are children and don’t deserve to be shamed or ridiculed because they don’t live in a “traditional” family setting. They are being cared for and loved. That should be what’s important.” 

“Imagine being one of the people commenting here who tell their kids, ‘NO! You cannot watch Sesame Street! They promote inclusion and kindness. That’s not what Jesus taught us; He said we should only care about straight ppl that look like us!’ Big yikes.”

Where will it all end? What will the next chess move be? And by whom? 

In today’s uncertain, nervous and edgy climate, some companies—including Target, Mastercard, Nissan, Citi and PepsiCo—have succumbed to the recent attacks on corporate DEI initiatives and have rolled back their traditional support for LGBTQ+ pride and related initiatives.

Possibly the reason for all the over-the-top enmity and hate was best expressed by one commenter: “You can tell who didn’t grow up watching Sesame Street.”

Image based on a photo by Malcolm Broström on Unsplash.