Sponge-Bob -- Gay?

Here's another excellent post from Dave over on Orcinus (he's on fire lately, isn't he?), about our favorite Levitican, James Dobson, and that silliness with Spongebob: it's more insidious than it appears at first glance, and no shock there.

Dobson's actually after the Southern Poverty Law Center, not Spongebob at all, and he's actually, of course, after tolerence -- he's actually, of course, after what all Leviticans are after: he wants to make this into a world where everyone is just like him: a world where there is only one answer, where every family is just like his family, where every man looks just like him and every women acts and looks just the way James wants her to look her and act and all the children do and say and think exactly what James wants them to do and say and think and then (and only then) will James feel safe.

James can't tolerate any other kind of world.

Anyway, go read Dave's post. It's detailed and thorough and lays out all the connections for you.

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2005/01/meaning-of-spongebob.html

Here's my favorite bit of the post, since it says what I've tried to say a dozen times about tolerence, but lots more clearly than I've ever managed:

Now, it's important to understand that tolerance, unlike James Dobson's misapprehension, does not connote promotion. That is, promoting a tolerance of gay and lesbian people no more promotes homosexuality than urging tolerance of blackness or Jews promotes blackness or Judaism. It merely creates the space where they are allowed to participate as full members of society.

That includes, of course, people whose religious beliefs oppose homosexuality, or Judaism, or for that matter nonwhiteness. They're permitted to believe as they see fit. No one is demanding that people's children make friends with gays, if that runs counter to their belief system. What advocates of tolerance insist upon is that their children not beat up on gays and their children, verbally or otherwise, nor actively discriminate against them, just as we insist on the same treatment for Jewish and black children. This shouldn't be too much to ask.