Posted on 01/29/2005 6:19:53 AM PST by Ellesu
STONY POINT — About a half-dozen James A. Farley Middle School students sported SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas or pants yesterday in support of the cartoon character's right to be himself.
SpongeBob Support Day was the idea of seventh-grade class president Jordan Uffer, who wanted to protest opinions expressed about the character's link to homosexuality.
"He's a cartoon," the 12-year-old Uffer, attired in SpongeBob pajamas, said. "I felt there was no reason for them to say that he was homosexual, and there isn't a real difference between gay people and not-gay people. We're all human beings."
The SpongeBob issue made the news after the Rev. James Dobson spoke to about 350 people in Washington, D.C., during Inauguration Week, saying a video to be sent to 61,000 elementary schools in March had a subtext that promoted homosexuality. Dobson is founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, an organization that says it promotes Christian, Bible-based family values.
The video features cartoon characters ranging from SpongeBob SquarePants and Winnie the Pooh to Clifford the Big Red Dog and Jimmy Neutron singing "We Are Family" and supporting tolerance of diversity.
While the video itself is innocuous, the group that created and distributes it, the We Are Family Foundation, gets support from groups that promote tolerance for homosexuality, Dobson said. The foundation's Web site also asks people to show understanding and tolerance for differences, including sexual orientation.
"SpongeBob has no idea what's going on in life, and he has fun with everything," Uffer said, explaining SpongeBob's appeal. "Me and my parents were watching the news, and we saw that a few religious groups were saying it's homosexual. I got mad. I asked my Student Council supervisors if we could do a SpongeBob Support Day and they said yes."
One of the reasons Uffer got his go-ahead was that the school participated this week in No Name Calling Week, said Farley Principal Alice Gottlieb.
No Name Calling Week was created last year, inspired by characters in a book by James Howe called "The Misfits." The children in the book, who were targets of name-calling based on their weight, intelligence, height or sexual orientation, run for school office on a platform to erase name-calling through a No Name-Calling Day. Farley seventh-graders read "The Misfits" and discussed its message of tolerance in class this week.
"This whole SpongeBob thing came to the kids because of that," Gottlieb said. "They're just great kids. It just bothered them."
Uffer asked his seventh-grade classmates to wear either SpongeBob gear, yellow or a tie (SpongeBob wears a tie) yesterday to show their support for tolerance and the character. Fewer than a dozen students appeared to participate. Trevor Wargo was one of them. Wargo not only wore SpongeBob pants and a top, he painted "Save Sponge Bob" on his forehead and both cheeks.
"He's just funny," Wargo said. "You're not going to grow up to be gay because you watched a television show. That's absurd."
The fihsing seems to be good here at FR. The libs have caught a mess of suckers on this thread.
Indeed!
Fishing is good too! 8^P
"This whole SpongeBob thing came to the kids because of that," Gottlieb said. "They're just great kids. It just bothered them."
Get it? The kids are "just great kids" because they "got it". What if they'd dissented? Would they be "just great" then, too? Oh, wait -- not that many kids in the school participated. Maybe there is some dissent? Maybe this whole thing is as transparent as a storefront window to the students at large?
Somebody better take a look at Gottlieb. I smell a liberal who's thoroughly jacked in to the HRC and GLAAD propaganda mill, and using her position to spread propaganda.
Notice that she changed the subject, which had been the fact that the homosexual lobby was using cartoon characters to try to reach underage youth and imprint on them.
You can always put a link back to a specific post you want to direct someone to.
Bump!
Good to see you, LG!
As usual your logic is hard to follow. You are saying that Dobson forced WAFF to use cartoon characters to promote their pro-gay agenda so that he could then link them to Sponge Bob? How did Dobson make them come up with that strategy? Please provide links to support your conspiracy theory.
I don't really view Rosie as a real person, she is just a character.....Bob might hiding his sexuality, I mean what would Mr Crabs think?
http://www.wearefamilyfoundation.org/tolerance_pledge2.asp
What now? You might want to think before you post, slick.
Yeah, we've the "sleeper cells" coming out of the woodwork alright. If they're DU-types operating at the fringe at FR, they've done a fairly decent job of causing dissention within the ranks -- especially on the matter of culture.
I'm not clear about your noting "numerous old timers" who've gotten banned lately.
Which kind of subject matter have led those posters to be banned?
Amazing, ain't it??
I suspect the New York Times and CNN are still considered "legitimate news sources" for these folks as well.
I can't recall exact threads, but there've been numerous ones, those that dealt with the election and Bush, others having to do with the Iraq war....just different ones. And I also read posts where other FReepers made similar comments about other threads they've been on.....that numerous old timers of FR have been zotted over the past few months.
I'm sure some others may confirm that to you on other random threads in FR....
It is spam in the sense that, while the truth, it was posted 6 times on one thread.
It's gonna be a donnybrook here come the 2008 primaries, that's for sure.
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