Tolerating Spongebob

Underneath the hysteria about SpongeBob turning our kids into queers lies an ugly truth about American Christianity.

Not only do these haters urge one another not to tolerate homosexuals but they look for ways not to tolerate them in the most harmless places. Their ugliness is much more perverse than anything they feel they cannot tolerate.

SpongeBob is not, we know, a thrusting heterosexual. He does not, so far as I know, spend much of his time in his cartoons down the pub, chatting up birds and trying to cop off. Why? Because he is a cartoon character who appears in a kid's TV programme. And it just wouldn't be appropriate, would it? Because what place has sex in a programme for four-year-olds?

We remember well that Falwell called Tinky Winky a gay role model because he carries a handbag. (Jerry has such a limited understanding of gayness that he automatically assumes that transvestite equals gay. Perhaps he fears that the States will be overrun by rampaging trannies who will force him to do something God won't approve of but in my world dressing up in women's clothing is not a particularly accurate marker of sexuality, and in any case, did the guy not notice, Tinky Winky doesn't have any sexual equipment.)

These people spend their days finding something to hate. Their God is a god of hatred, fear and intolerance, wholly unattractive, one would hope, to anyone intelligent or cultured. Why should we worry? Surely the falwellatollahs only appeal to fuckwits?

Well yes, but sadly those fuckwits number in the many millions in the States. They find the sight of a woman's breast more frightening than blood and gore, which they worship. They want schools to teach superstition rather than science. They want the Dark Ages and not the Age of Enlightenment. Worst of all, they have empowered arseholes who play on the fear that drives them, and those arseholes are a menace to all of us.

posted by Dr Zen @ 1:53 pm