Much Sponge and Fury, Signifying Nothing
Shame on the Rev. James Dobson for feeding the trolls such an easily digestible meal about "Spongebob being gay." As Andy Havens so brilliantly pointed out on the website Church Marketing Sucks, "don't ever, ever, ever get in a fight with a fictional characacter." You can't win. (Really, you should click over and read that instead. Great stuff.)
Still, does Dobson's media fumbling of the issue automatically make the We Are Family Foundation (whose benefactors include tolerance.org aka Teaching Tolerance aka Southern Poverty Law Center) any more right?
[And, Spongebob's sexuality aside, Dobson is correct that "We Are Family" asks fans of "Clifford the Big Red Dog" for a pledge of tolerance of "sexual identity" and links to tolerance.org, which takes the issue much further.]
In case you haven't heard, the crux of the matter is this: WAFF has produced a video of popular kids' TV characters singing Nile Rogers' "We Are Family" and is distributing it to schools. No, it really isn't a big deal after all, despite the website's claim that this project is "an unprecedented music video to promote tolerance and diversity to America's children."
Offended yet? Actually, I am.
WAFF is also naming March 11 "We Are Family" Day and pushing for Congress to do the same:
Excuse me? The September 11th "event?" Do you mean the "buy two tacos get the third taco free" event at Nacho Stop? No, you're referring to the simultaneous hijacking by Islamic terrorists of commercial flights and the destruction of the World Trade Center and a large chunk of the Pentagon. "Event" my ass ... that was an act of war.
So here's where my brain starts to overheat: of all the possible responses to the terrorist attacks, what mind turns to a '70s disco nugget performed by Sister Sledge and then gets all self-righteous about it?
By now we all know that George W. Bush is both Satan and Hitler and invaded Iraq illegally for his own gain. And I'll believe that sooner than I'll believe that the proper response to 9/11 is to "promote tolerance and diversity to America's children."
To me, it's a bizarre approach along the lines of, "Wake up, it's time for your sleeping pill!" My own children are nothing but tolerance. My white daughter, when the ads for the first X-Men movie were airing ever 90 seconds, asked me who was my favorite X-Man. Her favorite was "the white girl." The white girl? Yeah, Storm. Halle Berry. Admittedly, no one other than Michael Jackson has had more plastic surgery to look like a white woman. But my daughter was looking at the hair and the costume. Wasn't that the dream all along? To judge mutants not by the color of their skin but their choice of costume?
My daughter's very best friend "has brown skin." Her class is made up of a range of races and religions, and from what I've heard, any friction there is arises from bad manners, plain and simple, not intolerance.
So why "We Are Family?" Well, it's Nile Rogers' foundation, and he owns the publishing rights to the song, so that's one hurdle cleared. But why does my daughter have to sit through your stupid video to learn "tolerance"? Why not ship it over to Afghanistan? I hear women are allowed to sing in public there now. Why not hit them up with some disco and spread the message of diversity and common humanity? Then slip the mullahs your tolerance pledge while they're temporarily hypnotized by your friggin' disco ball. Hell, why not introduce your tolerance pledge as a U.N. resolution and see how many countries sign it there?
I can't sign the WAFF tolerance pledge, because I don't believe that "America's diversity is its strength." America's unity is its strength. America's tolerance is a very nice idea that gets people's throats slashed when they open the door. They really were family. And even though tolerance.org claims that "Every Victim Counts," they seem to have trouble finding any Christian victims of intolerance to feature their site. (Please click that one, folks. Pleeeeeeease.)
My children and I have never hurt anyone. You know, it seems that "tolerate" is all America does anymore, but this "tolerance pledge" you want my children to sign is so unnecessary it's offensive. Take your tolerance pledge and shove it up your ass.
UPDATE: These guys should definitely be put on the comp list for "We Are Family" DVDs.
UPDATE 2: I don't know how well the "We Are Family" video will fit in between episodes of this.
Still, does Dobson's media fumbling of the issue automatically make the We Are Family Foundation (whose benefactors include tolerance.org aka Teaching Tolerance aka Southern Poverty Law Center) any more right?
[And, Spongebob's sexuality aside, Dobson is correct that "We Are Family" asks fans of "Clifford the Big Red Dog" for a pledge of tolerance of "sexual identity" and links to tolerance.org, which takes the issue much further.]
In case you haven't heard, the crux of the matter is this: WAFF has produced a video of popular kids' TV characters singing Nile Rogers' "We Are Family" and is distributing it to schools. No, it really isn't a big deal after all, despite the website's claim that this project is "an unprecedented music video to promote tolerance and diversity to America's children."
Offended yet? Actually, I am.
WAFF is also naming March 11 "We Are Family" Day and pushing for Congress to do the same:
The We are Family Foundation is spearheading the passage of a resolution in Congress to recognize a National We Are Family Day. We have designated March 11th as the appropriate day as it is the six-month anniversary of the September 11th event. We Are Family Day will be a time to celebrate our common humanity.
Excuse me? The September 11th "event?" Do you mean the "buy two tacos get the third taco free" event at Nacho Stop? No, you're referring to the simultaneous hijacking by Islamic terrorists of commercial flights and the destruction of the World Trade Center and a large chunk of the Pentagon. "Event" my ass ... that was an act of war.
So here's where my brain starts to overheat: of all the possible responses to the terrorist attacks, what mind turns to a '70s disco nugget performed by Sister Sledge and then gets all self-righteous about it?
By now we all know that George W. Bush is both Satan and Hitler and invaded Iraq illegally for his own gain. And I'll believe that sooner than I'll believe that the proper response to 9/11 is to "promote tolerance and diversity to America's children."
To me, it's a bizarre approach along the lines of, "Wake up, it's time for your sleeping pill!" My own children are nothing but tolerance. My white daughter, when the ads for the first X-Men movie were airing ever 90 seconds, asked me who was my favorite X-Man. Her favorite was "the white girl." The white girl? Yeah, Storm. Halle Berry. Admittedly, no one other than Michael Jackson has had more plastic surgery to look like a white woman. But my daughter was looking at the hair and the costume. Wasn't that the dream all along? To judge mutants not by the color of their skin but their choice of costume?
My daughter's very best friend "has brown skin." Her class is made up of a range of races and religions, and from what I've heard, any friction there is arises from bad manners, plain and simple, not intolerance.
So why "We Are Family?" Well, it's Nile Rogers' foundation, and he owns the publishing rights to the song, so that's one hurdle cleared. But why does my daughter have to sit through your stupid video to learn "tolerance"? Why not ship it over to Afghanistan? I hear women are allowed to sing in public there now. Why not hit them up with some disco and spread the message of diversity and common humanity? Then slip the mullahs your tolerance pledge while they're temporarily hypnotized by your friggin' disco ball. Hell, why not introduce your tolerance pledge as a U.N. resolution and see how many countries sign it there?
I can't sign the WAFF tolerance pledge, because I don't believe that "America's diversity is its strength." America's unity is its strength. America's tolerance is a very nice idea that gets people's throats slashed when they open the door. They really were family. And even though tolerance.org claims that "Every Victim Counts," they seem to have trouble finding any Christian victims of intolerance to feature their site. (Please click that one, folks. Pleeeeeeease.)
My children and I have never hurt anyone. You know, it seems that "tolerate" is all America does anymore, but this "tolerance pledge" you want my children to sign is so unnecessary it's offensive. Take your tolerance pledge and shove it up your ass.
UPDATE: These guys should definitely be put on the comp list for "We Are Family" DVDs.
UPDATE 2: I don't know how well the "We Are Family" video will fit in between episodes of this.
3 Comments:
Ew, I did click on that link. The first three results are about how Christians are dumb. Wonderful.
On the tolerance thing, I'm reminded of a law-and-literaure class where our professor asked us if there was any honor left in our society as Shakespeare's Coriolanus would have recognized it.
My answer was, and is, no. Coriolanus had the virtue of the single-minded pursuit of principle, the purity of heart to will one thing. Today we are stuck in a quixotic situation where the purity of the American heart is to will tolerance (which never means tolerance, but always acceptance), but that is the will to the impure ethical condition of nihilism. We are to love everything, which is the very same as loving nothing.
There is no such thing as "strength in diversity." Strength comes from unity. We may, and do, unify around principles which allow for diversity- such as our freedoms- but to unify around diversity for the sake of itself is socially suicidal.
The New Jersey family were killed because of a lack of diversity ... of personal and household armament.
Don't get all racist on me now.
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