Spongebob Queerpants

David forwarded something to me about the recent controversy with James Dobson and his Focus on the Family group and how they're attacking Spongebob Squarepants because he's in a video distributed to schools for teaching tolerance of all people to their kids. There was even a New York Times article on it. The problem being that, since the video doesn't describe gays as evil, vile beings, it's "pro-homosexual." Dobson's assistant said, "We see the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids." Yeah, brainwashing them to respect and treat people civily, we sure can't have that in the public school system. (Note that the video makes no mention of gays or sexual orientation.)

I won't comment much more on it here, since other's have done so better than I (Kos, James Wolcott)

Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine lays into Dobson (here) and follows up in a second post (here). I made a couple of comments in the comments section of the followup, noting that anyone that disagreed with the conservative Christian dogma was called an anti-Christian "bigot." (Down towards the bottom; yes, I know there are 80-some comments on that article.)

How did we get to the point where suggesting that people be treated with respect gets you attacked as a bigot?