From the late 50s onward, Schultz had renegotiated his contract to take control of all of the licensing of the Peanuts characters. He was not above pursuing legal remedies to people using his characters in ways that he did not approve. The fact that this proliferation in gay culture is allowed to continue without really any kind of redress from the Schultz folks kind of signifies that he at least saw this as a allowable reading of the characters,. Even if he did not publicly endorse that.