Online Petition Urges Bert and Ernie to Wed on 'Sesame Street'

August 10, 2011 -- Thousands of same-sex couples have been married in New York since gay marriage was legalized in the Empire State in July. Now an online petition is pushing to have one more twosome join the line at City Hall – Sesame Street's Bert and Ernie.

That's right – the muppets.

Chicago resident Lair Scott started an online petition at Change.org to pressure the Sesame Street Workshop to "Let Bert & Ernie get married on Sesame Street." The petition reads, "We are not asking Sesame Street to do anything crude or disrespectful…. It can be done in a tasteful way. Let us teach tolerance of those that are different." As of this writing, the petition had collected more than 1,600 signatures.

But are Bert and Ernie even gay, never mind ready for the ultimate commitment? Scott clearly thinks so. In an interview with ABC News.com, Scott said, "A lot of people have wondered about Bert and Ernie.... Living in the same bedroom and the same home would make anyone question their sexuality." His aim, he added, is to get 20,000 petitioners to encourage the Sesame Workshop to either marry Bert and Ernie or introduce a gay or lesbian character.

A few days before he posted the marriage petition, Scott had generated another, asking Sesame Workshop to "Out Bert and Ernie as Gay."

Today Sesame Workshop responded in a statement: "Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves."

And despite what Scott or anyone else thinks, the statement goes on to say, Bert and Ernie aren't gay.

"Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics…they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation."

The characters were developed 40 years ago by Jim Henson, the creator of Sesame Street. The felt-based duo both wear stripes and have mops of black hair. But that's where the similarities end. Ernie has always played the lovable doofus to Bert's boring straight man. Bert likes pigeons, Ernie prefers rubber ducks.

For a couple of puppets geared toward preschoolers, the two have generated controversy over the years, centered primarily around their sexual orientation.

The rumor mill went into overdrive last year when Bert wrote on the Sesame Street twitter account that his haircut resembled Mr T's -- "the only difference is mine is a little more 'mo, a little less 'hawk." That was enough to convince many bloggers that the Sesame Workshop was secretly signaling Bert's sexual orientation.

But the folks on Sesame Street have always pushed back against the rumors.

In 2007, Sesame Workshop president and CEO Gary Knell wrote, "They are not gay, they are not straight, they are puppets…they do not exist below the waist."

Of course that kind of logic won't likely stop the petitions on Change.org. Predictably, Lair Scott now has some competition in the Bert and Ernie petition department. There is now a "Leave Bert and Ernie alone" petition and a "Stop Pressuring PBS to make Bert and Ernie Gay" petition.

As of this writing, the number of people signing up for those petitions is climbing.