SpongeBob SquarePants (2/15/2005)

Last month, during a long, cold, gloomy, snowy time, I was grateful for some laugh-out-loud humor. I found it in the story about SpongeBob SquarePants, target of the right wing. SpongeBob is a cartoon character that is being criticized by James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian group. Dobson claims that SpongeBob's creators are using the cartoon character to promote homosexuality. Dobson and his cohorts say that a video, starring SpongeBob, Barney, Jimmy Neutron, Winnie the Pooh, Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and other cartoon characters, promotes a tolerance pledge, including tolerance for differences of sexual identity. So this cute little sponge has now become the target of Dobson's so-called 'spiritual battle" for the soul of the country.

Here's some background. Stephan Hillenburg, creator of SpongeBob, said his spongy character is asexual. Nile Rodgers, creator of the video, wrote the hit song "We Are Family" and founded the We Are Family Foundation after the September 11 attacks to promote healing and unity. The music video features 100 well-known cartoon characters, of many species, which dance to the song; it has been shown on Nickelodeon and other networks. The idea is to teach children multiculturalism, and nothing in it refers to sexual identity. The video and accompanying materials will be sent to 61,000 schools in March. The tolerance pledge is not in the video or materials and appears only on the Foundation's website. The pledge, borrowed from the Southern Poverty Law Center, states that every person is a treasure, says America's diversity is its strength, and promises respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own. Dobson says that including sexual identity in the pledge "crosses the moral line." So much for Christian charity toward all our brothers and sisters.

Even though the tolerance pledge is available only on the We Are Family Foundation website, not in the school materials, Focus on the Family stands by its claims. Paul Batura, speaking for Focus on the Family, said , "We see the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids." Mark Barondeso, general counsel for the We are Family Foundation, responded that people who think the video promotes homosexuality, "need to visit their doctor and get their medication increased."

In another hilarious episode of this story, a member of this right wing coalition was interviewed on television as he frantically surfed the Internet trying to find any so-called "insidious" support, anywhere, for homosexuals. Heaven forbid that tolerance and diversity should be promoted in our country! I wonder if Focus on the Family wants to change our Pledge of Allegiance -- you know, the part where we say "with liberty and justice for all." The "all" part might offend them.

After watching SpongeBob SquarePants dance and the members of these intolerance groups search for a foe, I had to chuckle about who really is the cartoon character in this story. Poor little SpongeBob, who, as his song goes, "lives in a pineapple under the sea/absorbent and yellow and porous is he," could soon be hung out to dry if the Dobsonites have their way.

- Judith Kohler

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