Fred and Barney: Closet Episcopalians

Imagine two characters you’ve known of for 50 years, and whose religion you never really thought, or cared, about. Two people whose religion never once entered your mind, because it was a non-issue. Let’s call them Fred and Barney.

Now imagine that based on totally circumstantial evidence, people from a particular denomination decided that these two people were “one of them.” Let’s say it’s because they happen to know a certain hymn that members of this denomination also happen to know. And let’s say that members of this particular denomination feel underrepresented in the media. Let’s say that the denomination in question happens to be Episcopalians (a denomination I used to be a member of, have fond memories of belonging to, and hold absolutely no malice toward).

And imagine that when this idea that Fred and Barney were Episcopalians first started going around, their publicists politely denied it.

But a large, and loud, number of Episcopalians kept insisting that Fred and Barney were “obviously” one of them, and started loudly asking, “Why can’t you just let Fred and Barney be Episcopalians?” While others who weren’t Episcopalians, but were sympathetic to them, said that “a valuable teaching moment” was being missed by if not “admitting” that Fred and Barney were Episcopalian, making them Episcopalian.

And their publicists still denied and resisted it.

Imagine now that an important court case is decided about Episcopalians, and a number of media outlets feature pictures of Fred and Barney as examples of Episcopalians; and that Episcopalians start using them in their own media materials.

And now their publicists have had enough and sue.

This now pisses off the loud and activist Episcopalians, and their supporters; who say that the denial that Fred and Barney are anything but Episcopalians shows antipathy toward them, and implies that Fred and Barney’s publicist thinks there’s something wrong with being an Episcopalian.

Except for one little detail…Fred and Barney are actually Lutherans, and didn’t think it was anyone’s business what they were. That one hymn they knew that “everyone” said was proof that they were Episcopalians, was also in the Lutheran hymnal (and the Presbyterian one, and the Methodist one). Fred and Barney, and their publicist, didn’t think there was anything wrong with being an Episcopalian…they just weren’t themselves, and they were getting tired of being told that they were secret Episcopalians, and being used to represent Episcopalians.

Now is this really about Lutherans and Episcopalians? No. Some of you may already have figured out who it’s really about. It’s about our old friends Ernie and Bert from Sesame Street.

There’s been a movement in the last few years to “admit” that Ernie and Bert were gay lovers, because that’s what certain people in the gay community see them as. That’s what certain people want to see them as, simply because of the circumstantial evidence that they’re two guys who live together and are friends.

Many people in the gay community, as well as many gay allies (and “there’s nothing wrong with that”), want Ernie and Bert to be gay, or want it to be “admitted” that they’re gay, so that there are some positive gay role models on children’s television. And when the people at Sesame Street repeatedly say that they’re not gay (because that was the farthest thing from their minds when they created the two characters back in the late 60s), the activists accuse them of denying the obvious, and acting like there’s something wrong with being gay.

But the simple fact of the matter is that Ernie and Bert aren’t gay.

They’re Lutherans.