Right-wing threat over HIV-positive Muppet

It's shaping up as the cultural showdown of the summer. On one side are the makers of Sesame Street, who want to introduce an HIV-positive Muppet to the show, partly to connect with audiences in Aids-ravaged southern Africa.

And now, on the other side, a group of right-wing politicians, speaking in the name of "family values", has warned the show's producers in no uncertain terms that they had better think twice before bringing the character to the US.

"We look forward to working with you to ensure that only age and culturally appropriate programs air on PBS [the Public Broadcasting System, which has put out Sesame Street since 1969]", the politicians wrote in a clearly threatening letter over the weekend.

The five signatories are all Republican members of the House Commerce Committee, which has budgetary oversight over PBS's parent company, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Writing to Pat Mitchell, the president of PBS, they asked very specific questions about money being spent on the new character and what plans, if any, there were to introduce her in the US.

The implication was clear: bring HIV into the sunny world of children's broadcasting and your budgetary future can no longer be guaranteed.

Public television has long been a target of right-wing legislators, who see it as a hot-bed of liberal thinking inimical to the core values of the US heartland. The brewing row is reminiscent of many similar clashes in the past, including the rows over public funding for a show of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs and last year's brouhaha over a Britpack art show at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.