By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – For some, a controversial episode of a children’s television program is all about sugar. For others, it’s all about sex.

A group of 25 hoped to sway Maine Public Broadcasting Network executives to one side or the other concerning the fate of “Sugartime,” an episode in the children’s series “Postcards From Buster.”

It was a sometimes, angry, sometimes tear-filled two hours of testimony Saturday at the MPBN’s Lewiston offices.

“I don’t believe that homosexuals have the moral authority to rearrange our notions about marriage,” said Elaine Graham, of Farmington.

She blamed a national homosexual agenda for trying to broadcast the episode, which features a cartoon rabbit visiting a Vermont family headed by two mothers. Graham’s voice broke as she urged members of the network’s Community Advisory Board not to run the program and “poison the children.”

Donna Senk Beil, a lesbian mother, was just as emotional.

“What you are saying is that my family is controversial, that it’s up for a debate,” Senk Beil said. “I feel that threatens my very existence.”

Bernie Ricceti, programming director for MPBN, said he and Television Services Director Joe Riley would decide whether to use the episode next few days.

“Postcards from Buster” is a spinoff of the popular PBS show “Arthur.” In the show, bunny Buster Baxter travels from city to city with his pilot father, meeting new friends and tasting the local food. Buster videotapes the visits and send them back to his friends.

Conservative groups responded when Buster visited Vermont to see how maple syrup was made. During the show, he notes that a girl he’s visiting has “a lot of moms.” U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings criticized PBS for the show, and PBS national pulled the episode.

In February show creators WGBH-Boston made the episode available anyway. Ricceti said that he and Riley decided to put the issue before the Community Advisory Board before making a decision.

“There is no doubt that this is a controversial issue,” Ricceti said. “The last thing we want to do is take away the rights of parents to discuss controversial issues with their children. We don’t want that decision. That’s why we have a community advisory board.”

Members of the advisory board received advance copies of the program, which they watched and shared with friends, neighbors and co-workers.

Of the 18 at Saturday’s meeting, few said they received negative comments.

“One person who had not seen the tape said they assumed the sexuality was blatant because of the way it had been hyped,” said board member Elizabeth A. Eames of Lewiston. “When they actually saw it, they said it was not that way at all.”

Board members agreed the program was mostly about making maple syrup and not about sexuality.

“Quite a few of the people I talked to did watch the tape with their small children, and they said the children didn’t seem to notice anything other than the maple syrup,” said Richard Asam of Presque Isle.

That’s what makes the episode dangerous, according to Lewiston’s Rev. Doug Taylor.

“It is an intro into homosexuality,” Taylor said. “Sex is sex, no matter how you divide it or cover it up. It does not belong on children’s television.”

His wife, Sonia Taylor, agreed.

“If you believe this show is just about sugar, then why did the Many and One Coalition step to protest it not being shown?” she said. “It’s not just about sugar. It’s about putting homosexuality in front of our children and making it seem normal.”

Others responded that homosexual families do exist, and the controversy is an attempt to discriminate against them.

“This is not a tempest in a teapot,” said John Costin of Kennebunk. “This is a very real thing. I think it’s the thin edge of an agenda to label some people as less than human.”

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