Beware SpongeBob

From this morning's Washington Post, I learned of a story I was quite behind the times on, which apparently broke last week. Al Kamen reports that James Dobson (the fearless leader of fundamentalist Christians in our land) has accused SpongeBob Squarepants of--you guessed it--promoting the gay agenda. (Full disclosure: I find SpongeBob to be unbelievably creepy.)

Kamen's writeup of this is funnier than I could ever be, but doesn't quite give you the whole scoop, so here it is, as I understand it. The We Are Family Foundation has produced a video designed to teach tolerance. It has a bunch of cartoon characters, including SpongeBob, dancing to the song "We are Family". Also, sometimes this foundation talks about diversity, and by that they mean the usual litany we're all familiar with--including sexual orientation. This, of course, means that SpongeBob, whether he knows it or not, is being used to promote the "homosexual lifestyle".

If you want to read Dr. Dobson's defense of himself, you can read it here. I'll point out a couple of my favorite parts, such as when he says

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I’m sure you can see, now, why I expressed great concern about the intention of the We Are Family Foundation in using SpongeBob and company to promote the theme of "tolerance and diversity," which are almost always buzzwords for homosexual advocacy.

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and also

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Of particular significance is a so called "Tolerance Pledge" that appears to complement the pro-homosexual propaganda found within the once available school curricula. The second paragraph of the pledge reads as follows:

"To help keep diversity a wellspring of strength and make America a better place for all, I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own." [Emphasis added.]

The words "sexual identity" in that last sentence hold the key to understanding what is going on here. They reveal a very clever and subtle intent lying below the water line. The stated purpose, as we have seen, is to teach children to respect each other and to accept those who are different. We are entirely supportive of that message. I have been teaching it for years. There appears to be another agenda operating here, however, that has serious implications for your kids. Quite simply, it is to desensitize very young children to homosexual and bisexual behavior.

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Ah, yes, all that talk about tolerance and diversity--forget about race relations, gender equality, religious tolerance. It's all been a front for turning our nation's schoolchildren gay!

Honestly. Do these people have nothing else to do with their time but look for homosexual bogeymen everywhere? First it was Disney, then Teletubbies--now this. When you start to look around and see evil and danger everywhere you turn, you probably should ask yourself if you've got the proper perspective on the world.

Oh, and you can watch the video here, if you're into that kind of thing (sadly, it didn't appear to work on my Mac).