Hands Off SpongeBob!(Reuters more accurate than the NYTIMES)

Toonzone via Instapundit. ^ | 01/21/05 | Maxie Zeus

[Pikamax]

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First they came for the Teletubbies and I did nothing, because I hate mewling horribles who live in Orwellian romper rooms. But then they came for SpongeBob SquarePants. Now it's time to march.

That's the reaction a lot of people--not all of them cartoon fans--seem to have had when The New York Times on Thursday reported that James Dobson had criticized Nickelodeon's cheerful yellow sponge for appearing in a video promoting tolerance. The problem, apparently, is that the kind of tolerance being promoted would extend to (among others) people who are gay.

People who read the Times account weren't very happy with Dobson. Over dinner, for instance, my sister laid it on the table with the off-hand remark, "I see that now they're attacking SpongeBob for being gay." "They" are not one of her favorite groups. Nor one of mine.

At Toon Zone, we haven't followed this story with focused interest. But I have watched, with a mounting dread, as each piece of the current controversy started to fall into place. Last November we reported on the video now being criticized.

We reported, too, when the attacks started earlier this month.

And on Thursday we duly carried a summary and link to the Times article (registration required; here is a hassle-free copy).

So I'm not exactly surprised to see this break out into the wider world. While posting the earlier articles I could be heard silently muttering to myself: "3… 2… 1… Make controversy go now!" Complaints that cartoons are corrupting our kids are about as bewhiskered as the Bugs Bunny in a dress gag. This kind of hysteria makes me very tired, both because it's very silly and also very old.

At the same time, let's remember that it's The New York Times we're dealing with. These days it helps to have an advanced degree in Kremlinology while perusing their articles.

Look at the Times opening grafs:

On the heels of electoral victories to bar same-sex marriage, some influential conservative Christian groups are turning their attention to a new target: SpongeBob SquarePants.

"Does anybody here know SpongeBob?" James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, asked the guests Tuesday night at a black-tie dinner for members of Congress and political allies to celebrate the election results.

In many circles, SpongeBob needs no introduction. He is popular among children and grownups as well who watch him cavorting under the sea on the Nickelodeon cartoon program that bears his name. In addition, he has become a camp figure among adult gay men, perhaps because he holds hands with his animated sidekick Patrick.

Now, Dobson said, SpongeBob's creators had enlisted him in a "pro-homosexual video," in which he appeared alongside other children's television characters such as Barney and Jimmy Neutron, among many others.

Compare it with this summary from Reuters:

Christian Conservative groups have issued a gay alert warning over a children's video starring SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney and a host of other cartoon favorites.

The wacky square yellow SpongeBob is one of the stars of a music video due to be sent to 61,000 U.S. schools in March. The makers -- the nonprofit We Are Family Foundation -- say the video is designed to encourage tolerance and diversity.

But at least two Christian activist groups say the innocent cartoon characters are being exploited to promote the acceptance of homosexuality.

Notice the difference?

The Times: Several conservative Christian groups are criticizing SpongeBob SquarePants for appearing in a video that they claim promotes homosexuality. (Those are the words of our reporter Ace the Bathound.)

Reuters: Christian groups are criticizing a video that exploits cartoon characters to advance a pro-gay agenda.

As Reuters describes it, Christian groups are attacking a video; the various cartoon characters and entertainers who appear in it are being criticized indirectly (if at all) for lending themselves to an agenda that these critics deplore. As the Times describes it, though, these groups are specifically attacking SpongeBob. And by sticking in an early and gratuitous reference to SpongeBob's popularity with gay men (a point utterly irrelevant to a story about the video), the Times creates the impression that Dobson is attacking SpongeBob for being a gay icon. No wonder a casual reader comes away with the impression that Dobson is attacking SpongeBob for being gay.

In fact, if you read the Times article carefully you'll see that it adds nothing to the story carried by WorldNetDaily two weeks ago, except for some innuendo about a popular cartoon character. (Reuters' more pellucid summary makes clear that the story hasn't advanced in the last two weeks.) Of course, I don't know for sure: maybe Dobson went off on an anti-gay tirade in which he mocked SpongeBob for his cheerfulness, his tendency to skip and sing, and his fondness for holding hands with his best friend Patrick. But if so, why is the only Dobson quote in the Times the colorless "Does anybody here know SpongeBob?"

I'm not interested in the "gay" angle to SpongeBob, and as an editor and reporter on this site I have no interest in gay marriage, gay rights or any of the other social controversies that so exercise Dobson. I think Dobson and his allies are very foolish to treat what sounds like a bland grammar-school video as a threat to American values; I think it is execrable that he should try piggybacking his social agenda onto innocent cartoon characters and their innocent creators.

But the Times, intentionally or not, appears to be guilty of the same thing. Deliberately or not, it appears to have twisted Dobson's position and imputed to him (without evidence) an argument he does not seem to have made. And in making SpongeBob sound like a martyr, it appears to be trying to piggyback a rival agenda onto his very thin shoulders: Save SpongeBob from the bluenoses!

Cartoons don't deserve this. SpongeBob doesn't deserve this. And SpongeBob's creator, Stephen Hillenburg, certainly doesn't deserve to have his creation kidnapped and turned into a giant puppet in some freak protest parade, no matter what its cause.

To Dobson and the Times I've a simple message: Get your hands out of SpongeBob's square pants.

Update: Dobson's organization has released a statement on the controversy.

[RockAgainsttheLeft04]

RE: "I'm also not going to participate in anymore homosexual content threads after this last sentence."


Probably a wise choice on your part spinestein. These are no-win threads. The only reason why probably 3 out of my last five active threads have dealt with the issues of homosexuality in America is because I find myself drawn closer and closer to the fire that this discussion always provokes. While 95% of FReepers have already said most of what needs to be said on most issues (and already stated my clear conservative beliefs for me) like the need for reduced taxation, strong national defense, patriotism in times of Islamic terror and war, protection of our 2nd-Amendment rights from gun-grabbers, border protection, and the hideous legalization of slaughter we call abortion; the very same 95% of FReepers become foolish, irrational, religiously zealous robots when homosexuality is brought up. I guess I just can't resist calling them on it.

Many FReepers seem to share a kind of "American liberty for me, but not for thee" viewpoint when it comes to homosexuality, shielding their intense bigotry in meaningless, insipid buzzwords like the "gay agenda" whenever their viewpoint is challenged. Many of them, unable or simply too cowardly to fight for their own beliefs on the matter, resort to the infantile crying of "TROLL", and remind us that Jim Robinson doesn't like gays either, as if JimRob ( wise businessman that he is) were God or something, and that we are bound to follow his ideas to the letter or be banned for life. Sorry guys, but when has taking a conservative viewpoint on 80% of all issues and disagreeing with the majority in three fields (artistic freedom from censorship; the rights of gays to live as they want in America; support of the legalization of pot) made me or any other FReeper a radical leftists?

The difference, I think, is that there are many FReepers who only give lip service to the idea of our Republican form of Government and it's Constitution (with all of it's protections of unpopular ideas and persons from the majority-rules democrats among us), while they personally yearn for a kind of benevolent American theocracy in which God as they see Him rules over all of us and, of course, supports their prejudices above those of their opponents.

[little jeremiah]

Have you read any of the hundreds of articles often linked to on these and similiar threads?

If you haven't, you are forgiven your ignorance. If you have, then I can't understand why you think that conservatives' objections to the promotion of homosexuality as normal and natural is based on irrational religious zeal.

The facts are religiously neutral and speak for themselves.

Even Taoism, Traditional Chinese medicine, and Ayurveda all understand same sex behavior to be unhealthy and unnatural, leading to all manner of physical *and* mental/emotional disorders.

[RockAgainsttheLeft04]

RE: "If you don't know what the homosexual agenda is, you have either:

1. Been in a 20 year coma and just woke up,

2. Never read anything on FR for years,

3. Agree with it."


Or:

#4. That the idea of an organized, sinister "homosexual agenda" so prevalent on FR and among many of my fellow Republicans is actually just a useful excuse to engage in the systematic persecution of their fellow Americans for their perceived religious or moral sins against saintly, Christian "heteros".

In other words, you are full of it and I'm willing to wager you've never had a gay friend in your entire life, much less know anything about what their lives are like. They are pretty normal people, and the gay classmates I knew in High School seemed to share many of the same patriotic, libertarian ideas that I did. They just like to screw a different gender than I do-- big stinkin' deal.

[little jeremiah]

People who argue in support of homosexuality as being normal and natural and harmless are promoting the "gay" agenda.

The facts speak for themselves. The fact is that a much larger percentage of homosexuals were molested and/or seduced as either children or young adolescents, often by older or much older homosexuals. With women, they have often been molested by older men, thus creating a fear and hatred of men; or seduction and molestation by an older woman or girl. There is often the addition of very poor bonding with the same sex parent.

The above is factual. If someone denies this, they are blatantly denying facts. Such promoters of the "gay" agenda typically argue in the same manner - deny facts, never come up with alternative studies, statistics or articles that support their argument. All they do is deny what is being presented, as though repetition of a lie will make it turn into truth. Oddly enough, this is the tactic used by the Nazis- the Big Lie. And since the founders of ACT-UP admitted they read "Mein Kampf" for inspiration and technique, this is not surprising.

If someone wants to say that because some animals, under certain conditions, exhibit same sex humping behavior that this is evidence that homosexual acts are normal and benign, this is blatant promotion of the "gay" agenda.

[RockAgainsttheLeft04]

RE: "Even Taoism, Traditional Chinese medicine, and Ayurveda all understand same sex behavior to be unhealthy and unnatural, leading to all manner of physical *and* mental/emotional disorders."


And why is that relevant to anything except as further proof that some individual members of all religions, not just Christianity and Islam, hold bigoted ideas of homosexuals? The ancient belief that homosexuality is a mental disorder (shamefully not officially eradicated from our mental health profession until the early '80's) is one that touches all corners of insanity on this subject; it is completely unproven in it's entire ancient history, it is vicious in the extreme, and it is based solely upon personal beliefs and opinions.

[JeffAtlanta]

Little Jeremiah - thank you for putting down what your concept of the "gay agenda" is. I disagree with your take on the matter, but I do appreciate and respect your answering my question. It helps me know where you're coming from.

[little jeremiah]

You apparently haven't read any of the many articles here on FR. I figure you're pretty young and have bought the "if it feels good, do it" slogan in its entirety.

Well, actions have reactions - you can call it universal justice, what goes around comes around, or karma.

The fact is that same sex acts are not healthy, either physically or mentally. They promote varieties of physicall illness and mental and emtional dysfunction, up to and including aggression, depression, and violence. There is a strong streak of attraction to underage youth in the "gay" community - always has been, since antiquity. There is very little monogamy, and much higher than average drug use and alcohol abuse.

If you would like to post some research disproving the above, that would be great.

But you won't be able to. All you have are your "feeeelings". And you're welcome to them. I prefer the truth to irrational feelings.

[little jeremiah]

What do you disagree with?

[RockAgainsttheLeft04]

RE: "The fact is that a much larger percentage of homosexuals were molested and/or seduced as either children or young adolescents, often by older or much older homosexuals."


Careful there, boyo. By that same kind of flawed logic, I could say that the facts have shown a much larger percentage of devout Catholics were molested and/or seduced as children or young adolescents, often by clergy who considered themselves to be heterosexuals.

[little jeremiah]

I am not talking religion. I am saying that many cultures (in fact, the vast majority) understood same sex acts to be perverse, against the natural order, unhealthy, and immoral.

So you are saying that any viewpoint which isn't completely divorced from all religious or traditional moral values is suspect. Wow, what a sophomoric veiwpoint. Even many atheists on FR understand and appreciate the moral capital we as a country have because of the religious moral foundation of the republic.

If you think the the elimination of homosexuality from the APA's list of mental disorders was due to anything other than homosexual strongarm tactics, you have read nothing and know nothing.

I strongly urge you to read up on the matter. You're just putting your foot in your mouth. Even Spitzer, the psychologist (or psychiatrist, can't remember) who went along with the charade in the the 70's now admits he was wrong, and that homosexuals can change.

[little jeremiah]

You really are speaking entirely out of ignorance and, apparently, anger.

[RockAgainsttheLeft04]

RE: "The fact is that same sex acts are not healthy, either physically or mentally. They promote varieties of physicall illness and mental and emtional dysfunction, up to and including aggression, depression, and violence. There is a strong streak of attraction to underage youth in the "gay" community - always has been, since antiquity. There is very little monogamy, and much higher than average drug use and alcohol abuse."


You give me your opinions, strong as they are, as fact here; and conclusions which you have come to about the entire homosexual community of millions through the examples of a few. There is very little monogamy among the so-called devoted Christians on my mother's side of the family too (and great ammounts of violent behavior and aggression), but what the Hell does that have to do with Christianity as a whole?

Ad hominum is not your friend, little jeremiah, it is the betrayer of the individual to groupthink.

[little jeremiah]

If you would dare to read articles at the link below, you would see that homosexual researchers, researching homosexuals, have found a much higher percentage of molestation/seduction than the general population.

You are calling undeniable facts - admitted to by homosexuals themselves - flawed logic.

Why are you so adamntly opposed to truth? Educate yourself and find out the facts. Many of the articles link to below are by homosexuals themselves, and/or use data collected by homosexuals.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1026551/posts?page=381#381
homosexual agenda article links page

[nicmarlo]

That would be psychiatrist, Robert Sptizer.

New Study Results: "Some Gays Can Change"

"Like most psychiatrists," says Dr. Robert Spitzer, "I thought that homosexual behavior could be resisted, but sexual orientation could not be changed. I now believe that's untrue--some people can and do change."

[little jeremiah]

Typical anecdotal story masquerading as useful fact.

Sentences containing phrases such as "All the gays I know" or "All my Christian relatives" are worthless, except maybe on TV shows or gossip columns.

[nicmarlo]

New York Post Exposes High Rate Of Teacher/Student Molestations

In a story not widely publicized in the mainstream press, the New York Post published a story in its July 30, 2001 edition about the secret epidemic of homosexual child abuse cases that go unreported in New York City’s public schools.

The report, “Secret Shame Of Our Schools: Sexual Abuse Of Students Runs Rampant,” by Douglas Montero, is the result of an analysis of 117 cases of sexual abuse between January 1999 and June 2001. Sixty percent of those accused of sexual abuse were transferred to desk jobs inside the school district. Forty percent of those transferred suspects were repeat sex offenders.

* * *

Dr. Judith Reisman, in her book, Kinsey, Crimes & Consequences, describes the research done by Dr. Gene Abel. This researcher compared the molestation rates of self-confessed homosexual and heterosexual child molesters. In a sample of 153 homosexual molesters, they confessed to a total of 22,981 molestations. This is equivalent to 150 children per molester. Self-admitted heterosexual molesters admitted to 4,435 molestations. This comes to 19.8 victims per molester. Dr. Abel concluded that homosexuals “sexually molest young boys at an incidence that is occurring from five times greater than the molestation of girls.”

[RockAgainsttheLeft04]

RE: "I am not talking religion. I am saying that many cultures (in fact, the vast majority) understood same sex acts to be perverse, against the natural order, unhealthy, and immoral."


And they are right because they are the majority? Well, F-me, I guess I have to start hating the homos now because many "cultures" consider such bigotry to be excusable.


RE: "So you are saying that any viewpoint which isn't completely divorced from all religious or traditional moral values is suspect."


I said nothing of the sort. But it is a fallacy of your argument to believe that any viewpoint which you consider to be backed up by your religious beliefs can then be imposed upon others without question. Not everyone is a Christian, and not every Christian is YOUR kind of Christian (I'm a Christian, and most certainly not like you).


RE: "If you think the the elimination of homosexuality from the APA's list of mental disorders was due to anything other than homosexual strongarm tactics, you have read nothing and know nothing."


No, I think the very inclusion of homosexuality on the APA's list of mental disorders in the first place was a strong arm tactic of zealous theologians who disguised their ignorance as unsupported "science" (much like the nasty groupthink among evolutionists that causes them to label any believer in creationism a nut).


RE: "I strongly urge you to read up on the matter. You're just putting your foot in your mouth. Even Spitzer, the psychologist (or psychiatrist, can't remember) who went along with the charade in the the 70's now admits he was wrong, and that homosexuals can change."


Condescending attitudes get you nowhere with me, boyo. I am very well read on the matter, I assure you. Spitzer is inaccurate in his assumptions, neglecting to take into account the human being's almost impossible ability to will himself into conformity in situations where he believes he may suffer among loved one's if he doesn't. Most of the gays who claimto have "changed" have really only changed because their family, friends, or relations would not tolerate them if they were to pursue their natural atractions. "Peer Pressure" is far from just a schoolyard issue, you know...

[RockAgainsttheLeft04]

RE: "Typical anecdotal story masquerading as useful fact."


Yet many of the links on that page are populated with nothing but anecdotal evidence, especially testimonials from individuals who have chosen to turn their backs on their homosexuality that do not reflect the majority of the homosexual community.

Keep trying and something might stick.

[RockAgainsttheLeft04]

RE: "You really are speaking entirely out of ignorance and, apparently, anger."


Odd, coming from mr. "gays are molestors". After all, There is no greater ignorance than that which seeks to marginalize, slander, or villify an entire group of people for the actions of a few individuals.

That anger you refer to is called righteous anger, and I have no problem with it whatsoever.

[RockAgainsttheLeft04]

RE: "Sentences containing phrases such as "All the gays I know"


And you still didn't answer my question about that. Are you dancing around something, like maybe you are attempting to slander an entire group of people when you have NEVER KNOWN A SINGLE MEMBER OF THAT GROUP!!

I might be astonishing if it weren't so freaking sad.