kids

Two little girls on Play School are at the centre of a stoush sparked by the Australian Christian Lobby.

If you just watched that video from Play School, you would have met Asera and Wednesday.

They’re two little girls who had the chance to show off their beautiful family in a segment called, “My Family, Your Family”.

“This is my family,” the two happily tell the little people watching Play School.

Throughout the segment, Asera and Wednesday walk us through all the wonderful things they do with their dads.

“Our favourite thing to do with our family is swimming,” they say.

“We love to play games in the water, too. Our dads are always trying to make us laugh.”

As a family, they do yoga together before bedtime, they play games, but the thing they look forward to the most is when they read stories together.

Take a look back at some of our favourite Play School moments. Post continues after gallery:

They tell their story through laughter and with love.

That’s the way any child would want to grow up.

Unfortunately, the Australian Christian Lobby doesn’t seem to like it that way.

Rather, they would prefer Play School to back far, far away from pushing “controversial social and political agendas”.

In a statement written by an ACL campaigner, Wendy Francis, the lobby group implied that by showing the story of Asera and Wednesday, it was now unsafe viewing for children.

“Unsupervised watching of Play School was always considered safe by generations of parents,” Francis wrote. “Now parents can’t be sure if their children are going to be exposed to contested social and political agendas.”

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Francis, a grandmother herself, accused the show of displaying “rainbow politics” that millions of Australian parents do not agree with.

“Millions of Australians also do not agree that two men should be allowed to deliberately deprive a child of its mother…

“The ABC should also not assume that producing children through harvested eggs and a rented or donated woman’s womb to meet the desires of two men is a public good.”

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Asera and Wednesday. Image via ABC.

FYI, before you read the rest of Francis' comments let's also conduct a quick fact check.

We haven't been able to ascertain the data that substantiates millions of Australian want to "deliberately deprive a child of its mother".

In fact, a Change.org petition that was urging the ABC to not produce the story of Asera and Wednesday gathered a whole 179 signatures.

If Francis is possibly implying that agreeing with marriage equality also means that one wants to "deliberately deprive a child of its mother", then the latest poll on the issue showed an overwhelming majority.

The Fairfax-Ipsos poll showed that 79% of Australians were in favour of marriage equality, across every political party. In researched conducted in 2015, the number of Christians in favour also held a majority.

Anyway. Enough with the boring facts and back to Francis' disgusted comments.

"Many parents will be disappointed with this, particularly as this is a taxpayer-funded program that should refrain from pushing confusing adult messaging to our children.

“Parent’s [sic] shouldn't be forced to have adult conversations about sexuality and bioethics with their kids at such a young age and it certainly should not be the government broadcaster raising the subject with them."

A spokesperson for Rainbow Families, Scott Williams, told the Star Observer the ACL's views were in no way surprising.

"Rainbow Families fully supports Play School’s decision to to show that families come in all shapes and sizes," Williams said. "There is nothing 'unethical' about having two dads.
“It’s disappointing, but altogether not surprising, that the Australian Christian Lobby would seek to portray this as pushing a political agenda."
And we couldn't agree more with Williams.
Play School has, for many years, encouraged children "to wonder, to think, to feel and to imagine".
Watching Asera and Wednesday wasn't their - or the ABC's - deviant way of pushing a political agenda (that already has majority support).
It was a beautiful way to tell their story and let children all across Australia watch. Let them feel it, think about it, laugh along with it.
It's terribly shameful that the ACL would rather have those two little girls invisble.