Zero tolerance
The Plaid Adder on Spongebob Squarepants, "tolerance," and why it is important to pay attention to the loonies
As Dobson quite rightly points out, he never did say that SpongeBob himself was gay. He did something much more sinister and much more dangerous, and I am coming out of retirement to explain exactly what that was and why, as ridiculous as Dobson has made himself and Focus On The Family look, we are making a big mistake if we fail to take what's happening here seriously just because it looks crazy to us.
Dobson's argument throughout, both in his original 'remarks' and in his post-controversy apologia, is that SpongeBob is now "promoting homosexuality." How? By appearing in a video put out by the "We Are Family Foundation," which is intended to, as they put it in their press release, "promote tolerance and diversity to America's children."
The whole article is really worth a careful read. Plaidder gets right to what is truly dangerous about the agenda of Focus on the Family, an agenda shared in nearly every particular by the Bush administration, and explains very well why it is that they see their cultural battles the way they do. Their idea of Christianity puts me irresistibly in mind of the way Dorothy L. Sayers, in the author's notes for The Man Born to Be King, talks about the beginning of Judas's fall: Judas, she says, was only a follower of Christ insofar as he saw Christ as the conduit to interpret Judas's beliefs to the world.
As a side note, I felt a particular personal depression as Plaidder's point sank in; some time ago I discovered the text of George Washington's letter to Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, written in 1790, and when I hear people talk about "tolerance" I always think of, and sometimes quote from, this bit (emphasis mine, obviously):
The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
No one talks about tolerance anymore, he is saying, because there is no need to use such an outdated term, one that, while well-meaning in its usage, still privileges one group over another. We got over that notion when we declared the whole unalienable rights business. No one is "tolerating" anyone; we're all Americans.
Today's fundamentalists continue to champion the cause declared rightfully dead by Washington 325 years ago: The use of government to sanction bigotry, assist persecution, and make tolerance an unspoken word--not because it is an unnecessary idea but because even that weak expression of human equality is, in their minds, too dangerous for Americans to be exposed to.
The prevailing impression in the culture has generally been that the religious right wants to take us back to the 1950s. We crazy pinkos have been saying for a long time that what they have in mind is more like the 1850s. We were being too generous.
As Dobson quite rightly points out, he never did say that SpongeBob himself was gay. He did something much more sinister and much more dangerous, and I am coming out of retirement to explain exactly what that was and why, as ridiculous as Dobson has made himself and Focus On The Family look, we are making a big mistake if we fail to take what's happening here seriously just because it looks crazy to us.
Dobson's argument throughout, both in his original 'remarks' and in his post-controversy apologia, is that SpongeBob is now "promoting homosexuality." How? By appearing in a video put out by the "We Are Family Foundation," which is intended to, as they put it in their press release, "promote tolerance and diversity to America's children."
The whole article is really worth a careful read. Plaidder gets right to what is truly dangerous about the agenda of Focus on the Family, an agenda shared in nearly every particular by the Bush administration, and explains very well why it is that they see their cultural battles the way they do. Their idea of Christianity puts me irresistibly in mind of the way Dorothy L. Sayers, in the author's notes for The Man Born to Be King, talks about the beginning of Judas's fall: Judas, she says, was only a follower of Christ insofar as he saw Christ as the conduit to interpret Judas's beliefs to the world.
As a side note, I felt a particular personal depression as Plaidder's point sank in; some time ago I discovered the text of George Washington's letter to Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, written in 1790, and when I hear people talk about "tolerance" I always think of, and sometimes quote from, this bit (emphasis mine, obviously):
The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
No one talks about tolerance anymore, he is saying, because there is no need to use such an outdated term, one that, while well-meaning in its usage, still privileges one group over another. We got over that notion when we declared the whole unalienable rights business. No one is "tolerating" anyone; we're all Americans.
Today's fundamentalists continue to champion the cause declared rightfully dead by Washington 325 years ago: The use of government to sanction bigotry, assist persecution, and make tolerance an unspoken word--not because it is an unnecessary idea but because even that weak expression of human equality is, in their minds, too dangerous for Americans to be exposed to.
The prevailing impression in the culture has generally been that the religious right wants to take us back to the 1950s. We crazy pinkos have been saying for a long time that what they have in mind is more like the 1850s. We were being too generous.