The Bob
The past few weeks around here (in the newsroom where I work), it's been Spongebob this and Spongebob that. Spongebob -- and the Republican Christians who supposedly are certain he's a gay plot -- has been the joke of first choice among some of my co-workers. Every time religion, or Republicans, or cartoons, or anything at all comes up in conversation, it'll segue into a Spongebob barb.
"Hey, _____, you have a call on line 3."
"Just as long as he's not a gay cartoon character, wah, wah, wah."
Just for the record, just in case I need to find it someday, I'm going to tack this up here. James Dobson never said SpongeBob SquarePants was gay.
Neither did the American Family Association, or its chief, Ed Vitagliano, who inadvertently sparked the flap. In fact, he's a big fan of the show.
What Dobson did was pick up on something Vitagliano had written in December and accused a group called We Are Family Foundation of exploiting SpongeBob and other TV and cartoon characters in a "pro-homosexual video."
The story got twisted, and shouted from the rooftops, and it came out (at least around here) as "Republicans and Christians think Spongebob is gay."
We are Family Foundation said it was going to distribute a DVD version of a video to 61,000 elementary schools. Vitagliano, an editor at American Family Foundation, read an AP story about that on Nov. 16. The words "tolerance" and "diversity" set off red lights for him.
"Those are often code words to promote homosexuality when related to education," he said.
Whatever. I'm not able to get as worked up about this as some people. I think it's sort of screwy to think you can convert people from one sexual orientation to another, but sexuality is potent stuff and that's a topic for another day.
Vitagliano wrote a story about this for the December AFA Journal. Some Christian Web sites picked it up, but the mainstream media let it go by.
There's a touch of he-said-he-said at this point. Vitagliano said he found teaching materials on the We Are Family Foundation Web site that introduce students to "concepts of homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality." It's not there now. But the We Are Family founder said it never was, and Vitagliano must have been looking at a similarly named gay and lesbian support Web site. Vitagliano says he knows what he was looking at.
Dobson made a reference to the video at Jan. 18 black-tie dinner in the presence of politicians and media, including The New York Times.
He never even implied what Spongebob likes to do under the sheets, and with whom. In the Jan. 20 New York Times, Dobson is quoted as asking, "Does anybody here know SpongeBob?" He went on to accuse We Are Family of hijacking SpongeBob to create a "pro-homosexual video."
David Kirkpatrick, the Times reporter, also noted in his story that SpongeBob "has become a well-known camp figure among adult gay men."
Well-known to whom? New York Times reporters?
It was the Times, not Dobson, that made the implication. You want to laugh at someone? Laugh at them.
UPDATE: Apparently my newsroom isn't the only one. Patterico catches an entire L.A. Times editorial based on the false assumption that Dobson said SpongeBob was gay.
"Hey, _____, you have a call on line 3."
"Just as long as he's not a gay cartoon character, wah, wah, wah."
Just for the record, just in case I need to find it someday, I'm going to tack this up here. James Dobson never said SpongeBob SquarePants was gay.
Neither did the American Family Association, or its chief, Ed Vitagliano, who inadvertently sparked the flap. In fact, he's a big fan of the show.
What Dobson did was pick up on something Vitagliano had written in December and accused a group called We Are Family Foundation of exploiting SpongeBob and other TV and cartoon characters in a "pro-homosexual video."
The story got twisted, and shouted from the rooftops, and it came out (at least around here) as "Republicans and Christians think Spongebob is gay."
We are Family Foundation said it was going to distribute a DVD version of a video to 61,000 elementary schools. Vitagliano, an editor at American Family Foundation, read an AP story about that on Nov. 16. The words "tolerance" and "diversity" set off red lights for him.
"Those are often code words to promote homosexuality when related to education," he said.
Whatever. I'm not able to get as worked up about this as some people. I think it's sort of screwy to think you can convert people from one sexual orientation to another, but sexuality is potent stuff and that's a topic for another day.
Vitagliano wrote a story about this for the December AFA Journal. Some Christian Web sites picked it up, but the mainstream media let it go by.
There's a touch of he-said-he-said at this point. Vitagliano said he found teaching materials on the We Are Family Foundation Web site that introduce students to "concepts of homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality." It's not there now. But the We Are Family founder said it never was, and Vitagliano must have been looking at a similarly named gay and lesbian support Web site. Vitagliano says he knows what he was looking at.
Dobson made a reference to the video at Jan. 18 black-tie dinner in the presence of politicians and media, including The New York Times.
He never even implied what Spongebob likes to do under the sheets, and with whom. In the Jan. 20 New York Times, Dobson is quoted as asking, "Does anybody here know SpongeBob?" He went on to accuse We Are Family of hijacking SpongeBob to create a "pro-homosexual video."
David Kirkpatrick, the Times reporter, also noted in his story that SpongeBob "has become a well-known camp figure among adult gay men."
Well-known to whom? New York Times reporters?
It was the Times, not Dobson, that made the implication. You want to laugh at someone? Laugh at them.
UPDATE: Apparently my newsroom isn't the only one. Patterico catches an entire L.A. Times editorial based on the false assumption that Dobson said SpongeBob was gay.
