Bert and Ernie Snuggle on The New Yorker's "Moment of Joy" Cover

Kudos to artist Jack Hunter, who came up with this idea, submitted an image to a Tumblr last year and now finds it gracing the new cover of The New Yorker, celebrating the overturn of DOMA.

As you may recall, in 2011, Sesame Street Workshop issued a statement, claiming that Bert and Ernie are not gay:

Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves. Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets™ do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.

That doesn’t bother Hunter, according to Gothamist:

At the time, he said, “While I’m certainly not the first person to speculate about Bert & Ernie’s more personal and private relationship, I thought they were well suited to represent how a lot of gay couples must have felt hearing Obama’s comments … after all, they’ve been together for almost 50 years … as ‘just friends’ or otherwise.”