News June 15, 2019
Lesbian ponies coming to Discovery Family kids show

My Little Pony is debuting a new same-sex couple and it's generating some buzz... but less than it would have a few years ago.
Caleb Howe

The children's show 'My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic' on Discovery Family Channel will be introducing a new lesbian couple .. of ponies.. in an episode airing the week of June 16, one of the show's writers announced.

The episode "The Last Crusade" will feature ponies Aunt Holiday and Auntie Loft, and writer Michael Vogel tweeted about the TV premier of the two characters, relating the moment to P***e Month.

That tweet resulted in a few flame wars on Twitter, (which Vogel pretty successfully avoided being d**gged into but did snark-Tweet about), as well as various messages of support for the move.

He also made sure to be expressly clear about the characters, and not to try to walk a line of ambiguous implication.

They are lesbians.
— mktoon (@mktoon) June 15, 2019

Daily Wire's Paul Bois points out that in an interview with Buzzfeed, Vogel, who is gay, stated that "diversity and representation" are his top concern in writing kid's shows.

"Diversity and representation are important for kids for so many reasons, and it's my first priority on everything I work on," Vogel told Buzzfeed. "'My Little Pony' has always been about friendship and accepting people (or ponies) that are different from you. So it just felt like something important to do."

Vogel has, in the past, Tweeted about L**T actvism, as well as on the topic of Christians and Christianity, and that came up again after the news about the episode got around social media.

The writer is expressly framing the depiction of the characters in terms of activism, and as an effort to advance the ideals and values he holds. That is important to note, because when anyone who does object says so, they'll be characterized as paranoid for suggesting it's a form of activism, despite the fact that the writer intends it to be so and treats it as such himself.

Still, the respectful and calm tweeting, and the abundance of L**T characters and storylines on TV will probably mean this creates less of splash than it would have just a few years ago, and will end up under considerably less controversy.

Ten is too young to make that decision, period.
I wouldn't let a ten-year-old decide what to eat for dinner every night or what movies were appropriate.
In what state do 10-year-olds make decisions like this? Because I'm not seeing any. You can't even enter into a contract until you're 18 in New York. You sure as hell can't order up a s*x c****e.
The final answer is, that if I had a child who was gay or t*********red, I'd love them and support them, I wouldn't tell them that the invisible man is going to make them burn in hell and yes I'd take him to a doctor for counseling to see what's going on so he can make that decision when he's 18.
How about some compassion for people or is Jesus against that too?

Ten is too young to make that decision, period.
I wouldn't let a ten-year-old decide what to eat for dinner every night or what movies were appropriate.
In what state do 10-year-olds make decisions like this? Because I'm not seeing any. You can't even enter into a contract until you're 18 in New York. You sure as hell can't order up a s*x c****e.
The final answer is, that if I had a child who was gay or t*********red, I'd love them and support them, I wouldn't tell them that the invisible man is going to make them burn in hell and yes I'd take him to a doctor for counseling to see what's going on so he can make that decision when he's 18.
How about some compassion for people or is Jesus against that too?

I don’t know anybody who is against teaching the basics of sexual education. But can’t you agree that we don’t necessarily need or want people in d**g teaching the subject? That is what we are talking about here. At least I am. Can the subject of same g****r sex come up in the teaching? Of course it can. But again, I would not want someone in d**g doing the teaching. A bit of overk**l isn’t it? In my opinion a priest in full robe regalia would also not be the best choice. How about a teacher to teach the basics without indoctrination? Is that too much to ask?

Dennis

Parenting style.... We never had a boy so I can only speak to what worked for my girls.
We have never raised a hand to either of them. We talked things out and made sure they understood
what we wanted and expected of them. No one was ever in trouble. We treated each incident as an opportunity to learn how to behave as an adult. When they asked us what our jobs were we told them, followed by telling them their job was to be professional students. My wonderful wife and me took what worked on us from our upbringings and applied them to our parenting style. It worked for us. We had to be diligent to be consistent and not be hypocritical in our lessons.
Both are in college now... from pre-K to the present my kids will come home and blindly spill their guts out
as to what happened during their day at school, at a party, a sleep over...wh**ever.
Still pinching myself daily...