http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-helvarg26jan26.story SpongeBob and Friends: Splendor in the Kelp
Under the waves, the teeming ocean is one kinky place.
David Helvarg is president of the Blue Frontier Campaign, editor of the Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide (Island Press, 2005) and author of "Blue Frontier -- Saving America's Living Seas" (Sierra
January 26, 2005
James Dobson of Focus on the Family has tossed a new harpoon in the culture wars, claiming that SpongeBob SquarePants is being used to promote a homosexual agenda. He doesn't know the half of it.
When it comes to sex outside of marriage, the oceans that cover 71% of our planet are rife with reproductive strategies and behaviors that would make Caligula, or even Bill Clinton, blush.
SpongeBob creator Stephen Hillenburg, who has a background in marine biology, had to be aware that in creating a cartoon sponge he'd be opening himself up to charge of marine-based immorality. Sponges can reproduce asexually, for example. And if Dobson's followers don't object to that, I'm sure they'll be distressed to learn that they also can be hermaphrodites. Single sponges not only produce both sperm and eggs but are broadcast spawners, indiscriminately releasing sperm in such profusion as to turn seawater smoky white.
Life in the sea, in fact, is largely about reproduction, not traditional family values. <snip>
Whatever you think about these marine animals as role models for American youth, we owe them, big-time. Their populations have been decimated by hunting, overfishing and ocean pollution. We're now catching fish faster than they can employ their reproductive strategies, with 75% of the world's edible wild fish maxed out or in a state of collapse. Even sponges have been over-harvested.
It's that kind of reckless disregard for life's unique, sexy and profound diversity that I'd call the real sin against creation.
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