Religious Right activist Gordon Klingenschmitt used a recent episode of his "Pray In Jesus Name" program to rail against the idea that Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street are gay, saying that it is nothing more than an effort to "recruit children into [that] perverse lifestyle."
Klingenschmitt was reacting to a recent comment from Mark Saltzman, who wrote for Sesame Street in the 1980s and 1990s, in which he said that he envisioned Bert and Ernie as a couple "as a way to contextualize them" when writing for the show, though the Sesame Workshop responded by insisting the Bert and Ernie are merely puppets and "do not have a sexual orientation."
"Mark Saltzman, by projecting his sexuality upon beloved children's puppets, he is actually trying to recruit children into his perverse lifestyle so that he can eventually recruit them to become what he is," Klingenschmitt said. "Homosexuals, because they don't have their own children, they have to recruit the children of heterosexual couples in order to continue and propagate their own population of available sex partners. They are perverting and recruiting children by making these false allegations and that is a demonic spirit inside of you, Mark Saltzman, who [is] targeting children for your own pleasure."
Klingenschmitt then prayed "against the sin of recruiting and defiling" and called on God to protect children from "the homosexualization of the liberal culture who wants to reach every child possible for their own pleasure."
