Sesame Street's unofficial couple, Bert and Ernie, are being urged to make it official.

Debate over their relationship status has endured since the duo first appeared in 1969. Sesame Street says they're just best friends, "created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves."

An online petition - at 3,700 signatures at time of writing - is now calling for the long time friends to be married. The petition is seeking to teach tolerance and acceptance by either allowing Bert and Ernie to wed, or to look to include an LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) character into the childrens show.

Sesame Street has always sent a progressive message to its viewers, having introduced different races and cultures to the show and acknowledged a HIV-positive Muppet, but the idea of a gay wedding seems to have angered many.

Bullying in the LGBT community has become an even bigger issue in recent months and this led to the launch of the It Gets Better project late last year as a response to the startling number of teen suicides in America. It has since received a lot of celebrity support.

Comments on Twitter and on other articles today indicate exactly the kind of problems these campaigns face, which is namely homophobia.

"I don't mind gays. But I draw the line here. I don't want Australia to promote being gay to my kids."

"This is a kid's program with puppet characters, but certain people with weird ideas want to turn it into something that's quite sickening to normal people."

The fact is that it's 2011 and gay people actually do exist in real life and moreover, they can be quite normal. So whether this is a 'joke' petition or not, it surely can't hurt to talk about making Sesame Street a queer friendly place so that each and every kid out there can know that they're not the only one looking like they look or feeling like they feel.

Although Jezebel asks, "Is it even worth showing a gay marriage to kids if it's not even real? Maybe we should try to concentrate our efforts on allowing gays to legally wed throughout our entire country."

To which I say, hear hear! But I think I'll leave the last word to Mr Maupin:

"The folks who fret that a wedding between Bert and Ernie would "sexualize" a kids' show were remarkably silent about a frog porking a pig."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/entertai nment/tv-and-radio/petition-calls -for-bert-and-ernie-to-be-married -20110811-1iodu.html#ixzz1UlHzgNx n