Students wear SpongeBob gear to show tolerance

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."

January 25, 2005
Dr. Dobson Takes on Media over 'SpongeBob' Controversy

by Gary Schneeberger, editor

Focus on the Family founder did not criticize a cartoon character, as has been widely reported, but was warning parents that the group behind a "diversity" video may put material in teachers' hands that could prompt them to teach kids that homosexuality is equivalent to heterosexuality.

Dr. James Dobson set the record straight today about the onslaught of media reports mocking him for comments he is alleged to have made about the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.

"I've been in the public eye for thirty-something years and I have never had my words more misrepresented than they were in this instance," Dobson said on today's installment of his internationally syndicated radio program. "I was said to be on the warpath for my dislike for SpongeBob — who supposedly has homosexual characteristics.

"I said no such thing."

What Dobson did say, in a speech last week in Washington during an event sponsored by the Family Research Council, was that SpongeBob is one of 100 popular animated characters that may have been co-opted by an innocuous-sounding group to promote acceptance of homosexuality to children. The group, the We Are Family Foundation, has produced a video slated for distribution to 61,000 public and private elementary schools; it features SpongeBob, Big Bird, Barney and others singing the old disco hit "We Are Family" and spreading a message of "diversity and unity."

And therein lies the rub — albeit well-concealed.

While words like "diversity" and "unity" sound harmless — even noble — enough, the reality is they are often used by gay activists as cover for teaching children that homosexuality is the moral and biological equivalent to heterosexuality. And there is ample evidence that the We Are Family Foundation shares — and promotes — that view.

"Unfortunately," Dobson explained, "the We Are Family foundation has very strong homosexual advocacy roots and biases."

For example, a tolerance pledge, which the foundation says it is "pleased to provide" on its Web site, reads in part: "I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own."

And it's not the only piece of pro-homosexual content that has been posted on the group's Web site — some of it removed in recent days.

The curriculum booklet that will accompany the "We Are Family" DVD when it is sent to schools in March, for instance, is likely to contain resources for educators seeking to normalize homosexuality. Although that guide has not yet been made public, a 2003 manual, also associated with the "We Are Family" cartoon-character video, offered several exercises for educators that equate homosexuality with immutable characteristics, such as race or gender, and suggest it deserves limitless tolerance and acceptance.

Another previous curriculum posted on the We Are Family Foundation Web site, called "Writing for Change," includes exercises such as:

• Generating a Description - encourages students to discuss the definition of "lesbian."

• Talking About Being "Out" - offers worksheet questions and a discussion of "perceptions of sexual orientation."

• Uncovering Attitudes About Sexual Orientation - explores the impact of "homophobia" and "heterosexism."

• Developing definitions - presents a list of stereotypical definitions, including "compulsory heterosexuality." That is described "the assumption that women are naturally or innately drawn sexually and emotionally toward men, and men toward women; the view that heterosexuality is the "norm" for all sexual relationships."

"The institutionalization of heterosexuality in all aspects of society includes the idealization of heterosexual orientation, romance, and marriage," the guide states. "Compulsory heterosexuality leads to the notion of women as inherently 'weak,' and the institutionalized inequality of power: power of men to control women's sexuality, labor, childbirth and childrearing, physical movement, safety, creativity, and access to knowledge. It can also include legal and social discrimination against homosexuals and the invisibility or intolerance of lesbian and gay existence."

Tom Minnery, vice president of government and public policy at Focus on the Family, said reporters who have mocked Dobson for his comments have deliberately ignored these details in their quest to marginalize a pro-family leader.

"The media is trying to use this SpongeBob nonsense as a smokescreen, because they're not willing to tell the people what's really at stake," he explained. "What's at stake is the forced normalization of homosexuality in the public schools."

Dr. Bill Maier, Focus' psychologist in residence and a guest on today's broadcast, said he didn't think the media's efforts to undermine Dr. Dobson's integrity as a national spokesman for moral values would succeed.

"Clear-thinking Americans won't buy it," Maier said. "They've trusted Dr. Dobson for 27 years and will see through the media's SpongeBob charade."

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