My Little Pony is introducing a lesbian pony couple and Lyle Shelton is losing it
Popular children’s TV show My Little Pony is gearing to introduce its first ever same-sex couple, sending conservative Lyle Shelton into a tailspin.
Lesbian pony couple Aunt Holiday and Auntie Lofty are set to be introduced this month, during the final season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
While the pair have previously appeared in the books, this will be the first time they appear onscreen in the animated series.
Back in 2017, when a Twitter user asked if Holiday and Lofty were lesbians in the book, the show’s openly gay writer Michael Vogel responded saying: “Well, they aren’t sisters sooo…”
In light of the couple’s imminent television debut, the Australian Conservatives’ communications director Lyle Shelton has taken to social media to vent his concerns.
“We said indoctrinating your children and your grandchildren would be a consequence of ‘marriage’,” he tweeted this week.
“It’s a brave new world folks and we need to push back while we still can.
“Sitting outside politics is no longer an option for conservatives.”
We said indoctrinating your children & your grandchildren would be a consequence of 🏳️🌈 “marriage”. It’s a brave new world folks & we need to push back while we still can. Sitting outside politics is no longer an option for conservatives. https://t.co/tgyq9Y6xWI
— Lyle Shelton (@LyleShelton) June 12, 2019
In response, Shelton was ceremoniously roasted by a number of Twitter users.
“News flash: everyday things in life are also things in cartoons,” tweeted trans advocate Jordan Raskopoulos.
“Now we just need a My Little Pony episode where the Christian Fundamentalist Pony runs around manically, foaming at the mouth and telling all the rainbow ponies they’re all going to horsey hell, but all the rainbow ponies just laugh at him, so he skulls off, never to return,” another user tweeted.
Another user highlighted the necessity of LGBTIQ+ representation in television, particularly children’s television.
“Yes, showing kids that same-sex couples are not only a normality and you are likely to encounter them in society, but that there’s nothing wrong with being gay, is terrible. How evil of them,” he wrote sarcastically.
Last month, the popular cartoon series Arthur aired a same-sex wedding episode which revealed that teacher Mr Ratburn was gay and getting married to another man.
Despite widespread praise for the episode, ‘One Million Moms’, an offshoot of the ultra-conservative American Family Association, created a petition to have the show cancelled.
In a letter on the group’s website, the ‘moms’ claimed they had received more than 18,000 signatures calling on the PBS to cancel the cartoon.
In the same month, a petition calling on the writers of Peppa Pig to introduce same-sex parents amassed over 17,000 signatures.
in the 250 episodes of Peppa Pig that have aired to date, none have featured an LGBTI character.
The petition called on the show’s writers to rectify this by incorporating a rainbow family into the show, to champion diversity and inclusion.