Risk Of Peppa Pig’s New Lesbian Couple To Children Depends On What They Do, Edwin Vassallo Says
Former PN MP Edwin Vassallo has said that the risk posed to children by a new lesbian couple on the popular Peppa Pig show “depends on what they do” and that the same principle would apply if the couple were straight.
Earlier this week, Vassallo had harsh words for a Times of Malta report about the new Peppa Pig couple, who are polar bears, denouncing it as “media indoctrination of young children”.
“Look at what pleases our journalists,” he said. “Nowadays our media has become enforced indoctrination of an ideology that ruins children’s innocence, and parents have had their children robbed from under their very eyes by media houses with a toxic agenda.”
“You are truly allowing the truth to show, the problem is that no one is ready to shoulder responsibility for the damage this ideology is having on our children.”
Lovin Malta asked Vassallo how he thinks the new lesbian couple risks harming children and the former MP said it all depends on how the show portrays them.
“The presence of a gay couple will not cause harm, it depends on what the couple will be doing in front of children that could risk harm and this does not depend on the couple being gay or not,” he said.
“You could have a straight couple that, by what they do, could risk harming children. So the presence on its own, I believe, will not risk or cause harm… the doing could risk harm and that is the wrongdoing of any couple, whatever the orientation.”
Asked what he believes the “damaging and indoctrinating ideology” he referred to is, he said that applies to “anything which is inappropriate to the audience and will cause them harm”, but without going into specifics.
Vassallo’s comment raised eyebrows, with LGBTIQ+ activist Russell Sammut mockingly thanking the former MP for referring to him and people like him as “toxic” and Aleksandar Dimitrijevic from the Men Against Violence NGO turning the tables on Vassallo – a renowned Catholic politician – by claiming that it is the religion he practices which risks damaging children.
“Telling our children that there are different kinds of families in the world, that love and are loved regardless of the gender of the parents, is telling them about something that is real and exists in the world. That is not indoctrination. That’s education,” he said.
“On the other hand, introducing young children into a belief that an all-powerful being, who sacrificed his own son through bloody torture for their sins (and have a symbol of that torture hanged in each and every classroom) will torment them into eternity if they do not obey the rules from the ancient book as interpreted and dictated by the men like Vassallo, is all about instilling guilt and fear into our children.”
“That’s not education. That’s indoctrination. That’s damaging. If he is so concerned about protecting the ‘innocence of our children’ he should start there.”
The Peppa Pig episode in question, entitled ‘Families’, first aired in the UK this month and features a character called Penny whose guardians are a pair of lesbian polar bears.
The Guardian reported that the episode followed years of campaigning for the popular show to showcase a more diverse selection of families.
Federico Mollicone, culture spokesperson of the Italian political party Fratelli d’Italia, has denounced the episode as an example of “gender indoctrination” and has insisted that Rai – which buys the rights to Peppa Pig – shouldn’t broadcast the episode at all.
What do you make of Edwin Vassallo’s comments?
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