Why FocusontheFamily attacks easy scapegoats

[geniph]

Sure, it's easy to laugh off Dobson attacking a cartoon figure as ludicrous, but if anyone wants to read a truly excellent analysis of what's really behind this kind of "easy" scapegoating of a cartoon character, I HIGHLY recommend this post from the Orcinus blog:

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com /
(arrow down to the post The Meaning of SpongeBob)

One brief excerpt:

Over at Focus on the Family's Website, this argument is made clearer:

Dr. Dobson is concerned that these popular animated personalities are being exploited by an organization that's determined to promote the acceptance of homosexuality among our nation's youth.

It's hard to say exactly which organization he's talking about. If you go over to the We Are Family Foundation -- the immediate object of Dobson's wrath -- it's pretty hard to find anything that even remotely mentions homosexuality. Moreover, if you click on the link to the "Tolerance Pledge" that Dobson says is the source of his allegation, you'll see that the pledge is actually the product of Tolerance.org, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In other words, Dobson appears to be attacking the SPLC by proxy. That should give people a little clearer picture of what we're really talking about here. Dobson isn't just condemning cartoon characters, he's attacking the basic concept of secular tolerance as a democratic cornerstone. That is, he's actively promoting the tolerance of intolerance. There's a simpler word for that: hate.

Now, it's important to understand that tolerance, unlike James Dobson's misapprehension, does not connote promotion. That is, promoting a tolerance of gay and lesbian people no more promotes homosexuality than urging tolerance of blackness or Jews promotes blackness or Judaism. It merely creates the space where they are allowed to participate as full members of society.

That includes, of course, people whose religious beliefs oppose homosexuality, or Judaism, or for that matter nonwhiteness. They're permitted to believe as they see fit. No one is demanding that people's children make friends with gays, if that runs counter to their belief system. What advocates of tolerance insist upon is that their children not beat up on gays and their children, verbally or otherwise, nor actively discriminate against them, just as we insist on the same treatment for Jewish and black children. This shouldn't be too much to ask.

Hammer-Nail-Head, Mr. Neiwert, once again.

As one comment on the blog put it: You can be as big a bigot as you want to be in your head, your home, and your church. But your right to be a bigot stops where my right to participate in the public life of my country begins. And if that doesn't leave enough room for you, that's your problem, not mine -- because history, the Constitution, and our fellow citizens are all on my side.

I cannot improve on that statement.

By all means, let's ridicule their choice of targets, but let's also never forget what they're really attacking.

[sniffa]

1. good read

i wouLd have summed it up in one word: coward.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. He doesn't dare take on SPLC head on, because organizations

that do, lose. Big time.

[geniph]

3. Right. They're taking on the "easy" target

but never lose sight of what they're really after.