Popular U.K. children's show "Peppa Pig" introduced its first same-sex couple on Tuesday, prompting substantial backlash from parents on Twitter, the Independent reported.
The issue is addressed on the show, which will air in the U.S. on Nickelodeon, after a polar bear cartoon character draws a picture of her family featuring two adult female polar bears sitting at a table for dinner.
"I'm Penny Polar Bear. I live with my mommy and my other mommy. One mommy is a doctor, and one mommy cooks spaghetti. I love spaghetti," the character states.
The introduction comes several years after over 23,000 signatories called on the show's writers to include a gay or lesbian couple in a campaign for inclusion and diversity.
"Children watching Peppa Pig are at an impressionable age, and excluding same-sex families will teach them that only families with either a single parent or two parents of different sexes are normal," the 2019 petition read.
"This means that children of same-sex parents may feel alienated by Peppa Pig, and that other children may be more likely to bully them, simply through ignorance," it continued. "Peppa Pig is not just for entertainment, children are inevitably learning from it too."
The same reasons given by petitioners are also what some parents who oppose the inclusion fear precisely.
"I have no problem with LGBT, etc. but what I do have a problem with is this s*** being drummed into them when they're toddlers, stop confusing them and let them be kids," one Twitter user wrote.
"That's the end of the Peppa Pig phenomenon. What a shame. Education not indoctrination," another user stated, adding that kids "need to learn the basics, the norm, the generalizations — not the outliers, the exceptions or the fashionable."
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