HE HAS LIVED WITH another man for 31 years, being rarely seen without him. He and his companion even wear the same garish pyjamas to bed – a bed they have shared for over three decades, without anyone ever as much as raising an eyebrow.

Now, Twitter seems to have finally been convinced of the truth: that Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie are gay.

The show’s official Twitter account – popular among the young and the young at heart – boasts over 266,000 followers, each of whom is regularly delighted by the messages being posted by Elmo, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch and the many other ‘residents’ of the famed PBS street.

A casual message posted by Bert – the skinnier, yellow character of the pair – during the summer, however, was a slightly more loaded message than a typical post (example: “Wanna hear a nifty science joke? What’s faster, heat or cold? Heat. Because you can catch a cold!”).

Posted by Bert, it read as follows:

Ever notice how similar my hair is to Mr. T’s? The only difference is mine is a little more ‘mo,’ a little less ‘hawk.’

Though the outward inference was a reference to an ‘A Team’ parody on the show (where characters had to find words beginning with the letter A), the use of the word ‘mo’ – as in, ho-mo-sexual – conveniently coinciding with the celebration of Gay Pride week – meant more than the target audience might realise.

The Los Angeles Times, noting the tweet at the weekend, wondered whether Sesame Street was “brought to you by the letters G-A-Y” – suggesting that a recent appearance by the Black Eyed Peas’ Will.I.Am, in which he sang about “If what I am is what’s in me/then I’ll stay strong, that’s what I’ll be” may have been another nod to advocating a gay-equality agenda.

There’s also this scene, in which Grover says a marriage is between “two people” (and not, apparently significantly, between a man and a woman):

What do you think – has Sesame Street been covertly (but actively) promoting tolerance of homosexuality? Let us know in the comments.