Zero Tolerance
February 2, 2005
By The Plaid Adder
Editor's note: The Plaid Adder is still on
hiatus. This is a special one-off column.
Yesterday
I forced myself to read through Dr. Dobson's defense of his attack
on SpongeBob Squarepants at a Focus on the Family event. While I
found it 100% emetic from beginning to end, I do want to point out
that he is absolutely right about one thing. The mainstream media
coverage of this story has, as it so often does, oversimplified
the story by reporting it as, "Dobson accuses SpongeBob of being
gay."
As Dobson quite rightly points out, he never did say that SpongeBob
himself was gay. He did something much more sinister and much more
dangerous, and I am coming out of retirement to explain exactly
what that was and why, as ridiculous as Dobson has made himself
and Focus On The Family look, we are making a big mistake if we
fail to take what's happening here seriously just because it looks
crazy to us.
Dobson's argument throughout, both in his original 'remarks' and
in his post-controversy apologia, is that SpongeBob is now "promoting
homosexuality." How? By appearing in a video put out by the "We
Are Family Foundation," which is intended to, as they put it in
their press release, "promote tolerance and diversity to America's
children."
Now, to understand why this is terrifying, it is essential to realize
that there is actually no mention or representation of homosexuality,
or sexuality in any form, in the video itself, which is just a cover
of the disco hit "We Are Family" featuring the voices and images
of many different characters from popular children's programs. All
it does is what the press release says it does: celebrate the idea
of a common humanity that unites all of us in one global family,
and which the We Are Family Foundation makes bold to say might encourage
children to learn and practice such notoriously radical values as
"loving thy neighbor."
Is the We Are Family Foundation some kind of gay rights organization
in disguise, as Dobson charges? If they are, it's a pretty good
disguise. The "About Us" section of WeAreFamilyFoundation.org indicates
that the organization was founded in the weeks after September 11,
2001 - when, if you will recall, there was a mini-epidemic of hate
crimes against Muslims, Arab-Americans, and people who were mistakenly
identified by their hysterical attackers as Muslim and/or Arab-American.
The original writers of the disco hit "We Are Family" thought their
song might be useful as a way of counteracting this by "promoting
our common humanity and the vision of a global family."
So... how do you get a pro-homosexual agenda out of this? Simple.
You turn to a different right-wing organization, the Family Research
Council, which was good enough to explain the logic to a baffled
reporter at the National Business Review:
A "homosexuality detection expert" at the similarly
conservative Family Research Council told the NY Times that words
like "tolerance" and "diversity" are part
of a "coded language that is regularly used by the homosexual
community."
In other words, the very concept of tolerance - the idea that
we should all try to live together in peace and harmony instead
of being constantly at war with each other - is now obnoxious to
the religious right. Tolerance is a bad thing. Tolerance,
in fact, will make your children gay. And since being gay is absolutely
the worst thing in the world that could possibly happen to them,
we must all fight tolerance anywhere it lurks - on the beaches,
in the hills, in the streets, and of course in big yellow pineapples
under the sea. We must never be misled into tolerating tolerance
where it encroaches on our families, our schools, or the public
airwaves. We must work ceaselessly and with constant vigilance toward
that glorious day when we can say, finally, that we have achieved
zero tolerance.
This is the point at which, for many mild-mannered moderates,
the brain begins to freeze up, and to refuse to process the argument.
How can you argue that being tolerant of other people is bad?
What's so wrong with not insulting people, or abusing them, or excluding
them, or discriminating against them, or trying to teach your children
not to do the same? Isn't tolerance what allows a society like ours,
with so many different ethnic and religious groups coming out of
so many different national or regional traditions, to function smoothly
without erupting into violence? Wouldn't creating a nation of intolerant
people be, uh, dangerous? So now these people are saying that teaching
tolerance is bad and wrong? Sorry. That can't be. I keep trying
to understand that, but all I'm getting is an error message.
Indeed, Dobson claims in his post-SpongeBob screed that he has
no problem with the concept of tolerance, no doubt because he realizes
that that would make him look bad. Unfortunately, the rest of his
piece completely undermines that assertion. There's so much to choose
from, but here's the money shot, right here:
Every individual is entitled to respect and human dignity, including
those with whom we disagree strongly. The problem is not with
acceptance or kindness, certainly. But kids should not be taught
that homosexuality is just another "lifestyle," or that it is
morally equivalent to heterosexuality. Scripture teaches that
all overt sexual activity outside the bonds of marriage is sinful
and harmful. Children should not be taught otherwise by their
teachers, and certainly not if their parents are unaware of the
instruction. (Emphasis added)
So, from Dobson's point of view, it's all right to tolerate gay
people as long as you make it perfectly clear that we're sinful
and harmful and riding the hell-bound express. And the reason it
is necessary to impress upon all people, children especially, that
we are sinful and harmful and riding the hell-bound express, is
that otherwise, you're teaching them something that goes against
"Scripture."
How children are supposed to be able to figure out how to accept
or be kind to people who are designated by all the adults they ever
hear from as sinful, harmful, and hell-bound is a question Dobson
doesn't seem to feel a need to address. But the real problem here,
stated baldly for all to see, is Dobson's unquestioning assumption
that no child should ever be taught something that contradicts what
Dobson and his fellow-fundamentalists believe to be the One True
Reading of the One True Scripture. Even in a public school classroom,
where not all the students are Christians, and not all the Christians
are fundamentalist evangelicals, it is not permissible or justifiable
to teach anything that contradicts the fundamentalist Christian
world view.
In other words, what these people really want is to create a world
in which their value system is the only one that is ever
made available to children. That's why they're always exposing themselves
to ridicule by targeting cartoon characters. True, a grown man looks
pretty ridiculous saying the words "SpongeBob Squarepants" at a
black-tie dinner; but though that grown man may be a lunatic, he's
no fool.
The religious right has correctly determined that television has
a tremendous impact on children, and they have also correctly determined
that much of the programming currently available for children is
being produced by people whose first priority is not to indoctrinate
their audience with the principles of one particularly extreme sect
of one particular religion. The right has responded by producing
their own children's programming, which allows them to use the electronic
babysitter to manipulate children just like all the other advertisers
do.
But for them, you see, it is not enough that their point of view
is represented. It has to be the ONLY point of view available. Because
once you give people alternatives, then they have free choice, and
then they might choose the wrong thing, and then they would go to
Hell, and it's Dobson's job to save us all from that terrible fate.
Now, there are Christians who would argue that free will is what
makes humanity unique, and that God wanted us to have it, and that
that's why he allowed Eve to eat the apple in the first place instead
of striking the tree with lightning as soon as she reached for it.
But that doesn't seem to be part of right-wing fundamentalist doctrine.
They want a monopoly - on the schools, on the airwaves, in the political
arena, and, well, anywhere they can establish it.
Well all right, you say, I get that; but why is 'tolerance' a
challenge to their monopoly? Isn't 'tolerance' a kind of a, well,
kind of a Christian value? I mean my Sunday school training is spotty,
but seems to me I remember hearing things like, uh, "turn the other
cheek," "forgive your brother not seven times but seventy times
seven times," "take out the giant beam in your own eye before you
go looking for tiny specks in other people's," "love your neighbor
as yourself," and wasn't there some story about Jesus stopping a
bunch of people from stoning a woman who had committed adultery
by reminding them that there were some other sins in the world?
And as long as we're talking about other sins, if Jesus was really
as worried about homosexuality as these fundamentalist types seem
to think he is, how come he never once mentioned it?*
Well, see, we're really only dealing here with a specific kind
of Christian, and this specific kind of Christian takes a very different
view of who Jesus was and what he was put on earth for. This specific
kind of Christian is also convinced that any attempt to encourage
tolerance of - or even to represent - homosexuality is simply a
veiled attempt to recruit. Why? Because all of us tend to assume
that everyone else, under the skin, is really just like us. Therefore,
people who themselves are aggressive, tireless, fanatically driven
recruiters - as many evangelical Christians are - assume that everyone
else is recruiting too.
Dobson, himself, would never stop at simply encouraging
tolerance of fundamentalist Christianity. The whole point
of being an evangelical is that your goal is always, and everywhere,
to convert as many people as you can reach.
Fundamentalist demoninations have come up with a number of ingenious
methods of recruiting new members, often relying on things like
the "classic bait and switch" (come for the free food - stay for
the Bible study!) that they accuse the We Are Family Foundation
of pulling with the video. There are plenty of fundamentalists out
there who have no problem with extortion or coercion as a prelude
to conversion (one is reminded of the enterprising preacher in Iraq
who was offering American soldiers a chance to bathe on the condition
that they would let him baptize them). Naturally they assume that
everyone else around them is constantly trying to do the same.
The idea that for others it might be enough just to get people
to acknowledge their basic human rights simply doesn't compute.
If you believe something, how could you NOT devote your life to
forcing everyone else to believe it? Isn't that what everyone does?
It isn't, then, that the fundamentalist right-wing rejects tolerance
so much as that they simply do not believe it really exists. 'Tolerance,'
as they understand the world, can only ever be a mask for evangelical
zeal. So anything that promotes 'tolerance' is necessarily promoting
recruitment and conversion, and therefore must be stopped.
The course of recent history appears, to them, to provide proof
of this assertion because, in fact, as our society has become more
tolerant, there appear to be a lot more gay people in it. Actually,
it's easy enough to understand why that's happening: as it has become
less painful and risky for gay people to acknowledge their sexuality,
more of them are coming out. Slamming the door on tolerance will
not reduce the number of gay people in this country; but it may
well reduce the number of gay people who are willing to identify
themselves as such, and increase the number of gay people who deny
themselves, their desires, and their chance at happiness by attempting
to live as straight people.
And that's exactly what they want. The ultimate goal of things
like the anti-SpongeBob crusade and the push for a Constitutional
amendment banning same-sex marriage is to begin the process of forcing
gay people back into the closet. That way, their children will never
even know that a Plan B exists; and so no matter how miserable Plan
A makes them, they will, in theory, stick with it, even if it kills
them.
Well, all right, you say, but really. SpongeBob? This Dawson guy
is a lunatic. Fundamentalist Christians make up a minority of the
American population, overall. What bozo would really allow extremist
wing-nuts like him to dictate public policy?
Meet Margaret Spelling, new director of the Education Department.
Spelling has told PBS - which produces and airs much of America's
children's programming - not to air an episode of Postcards from
Buster in which Buster the bunny visits Vermont to learn about
how to make maple syrup, and meets a child whose parents are a lesbian
couple. "Many parents would not want their young children exposed
to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode," she said. And furthermore,
"Congress's and the department's purpose in funding this programming
certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children,
particularly through the powerful and intimate medium of television."
This is what makes the SpongeBob controversy not funny. It's one
thing for a crazy man to make an ass of himself in public by frothing
about the subversive dangers of cartoon miscreants. Spelling's missive
to PBS proves that under the Bush administration, this minority
has accumulated enough political and social clout to dictate to
the rest of the country. "Many parents" may object to this episode,
but many other parents don't, and still others are deeply offended
and bitterly angry about the fact that the head of a government
department funded with their tax money has just ordered PBS, on
pain of losing federal funding, to pretend that either they don't
exist or they exude a radioactive toxicity that will blight and
destroy any child exposed to them.
The "many parents" who win are the "many parents" who support Dobson's
view of Christianity and of the world. A friend of mine called up
her local PBS affiliate to complain about their refusal to air the
episode, and was told by a trembling lackey, "We don't want to offend
anyone." That doesn't make any sense; they are offending large numbers
of people by caving in to Spelling on this issue. What he really
meant was, "We don't want to offend anyone powerful." They
have their orders: reproduce the world view Bush's backers want,
or suffer the consequences of the king's displeasure.
At the same time, we are learning that the Education Department
paid pundit Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote No Child Left
Behind, and that Health and Human Services has paid at least two
conservative pundits for promoting Bush's "marriage initiatives."
These are not isolated and unrelated incidents. SpongeBob, Buster
the bunny, and the three payola pundits are all characters in the
same story. The Bush administration is using its power to turn a
minority religion into the dominant - and, eventually, the only
- public viewpoint. They are subsidizing journalists to plant articles
that create the impression that there has been a spontaneous 'sea-change'
in public opinion about marriage and the family, when in fact the
people who appear to be 'reflecting' this change are actually being
paid by the government, with our tax dollars, to produce it. They
are also using the power of the executive branch to squelch opposing
viewpoints.
Right now, they are doing it to us, because they figure they can
get away with it. But my straight brethren and sistren, I urge you
to pay attention, because we are the canary in the coal mine. The
crackdown on tolerance and diversity hits us first, because it is
still socially acceptable for people who aren't Trent Lott to demonize
us and discriminate against us. But remember, the We Are Family
video is not about us.
It's about the acceptance of difference and the recognition of
a basic human kinship that transcends ideological, confessional,
gender, and national boundaries; and it was produced by an organization
dedicated to stopping Americans from turning on their Muslim and
Arab-American neighbors in the wake of 9/11. Dobson wants the whole
project suppressed - he says - because some of the peripheral materials
associated with the video include GBLT people in their anti-discrimination
message. But my feeling is that we are simply being used as a means
to an end. Through us, he's attacking the basic idea that difference
- differences of race, creed, class, and sexual identity, but also
differences in world view and opinion - should be valued and respected
instead of hated, feared, and fought.
These cartoon characters are serious business. Spelling is right
about the "powerful and intimate" nature of television. It's precisely
because they recognize its power that the right wants to control
what comes out of the box. And for the past 35 years, with Sesame
Street leading the way, the dominant ethos in children's educational
programming (as distinct from, you know, the crap that corporations
produce just to sell toys with) has been that children's TV should
teach them to cooperate with, respect, and learn from cultures and
people who are different from them. And that has had an enormous
impact.
I was born the same year Sesame Street premiered. Sesame Street
taught me to read. It also introduced me to a universe very unlike
the suburban neighborhood in which I was growing up. It was set
in an urban neighborhood tenanted by a multiracial cast in which
working-class families were well represented. It introduced me to
a whole range of brightly colored creatures who expanded my idea
of the boundaries of the possible, and to a zany sense of humor
that taught us to expect the unexpected and greet it with shrieks
of delight. I was enthralled by it, and the effects were lasting
and permanent.
Once, when I couldn't have been more than 7, I visited a friend
of my mother's and was flabbergasted when she told me that she thought
Sesame Street was "just awful." I asked her why. She said, "It's
teaching children Spanish!" I still didn't get it. I couldn't figure
out what was wrong with learning Spanish. Weren't we supposed to
like learning things? Wasn't that what school was for?
Now, of course, I realize what that woman's problem was. And,
in her own way, she was right: Sesame Street didn't make me a Spanish
speaker, but it did teach me enough Spanish so that I now recognize
a number of words and I could still count to 20 in Spanish if you
gave me enough time and a few do-overs. Spanish doesn't now seem
to me like a completely foreign language. It's more familiar,
and therefore less frightening, and when I hear people speaking
Spanish, I don't think of them as aliens from a hostile planet.
And the ideological descendants of this woman, 35 years later, want
to make damn sure that no PBS program gets a chance to do for gay
people what Sesame Street did for African-Americans, Latinos, the
disabled, Native Americans, and all the other cultures and identities
that were represented on that show.
This battle matters, people. No matter how stupid it looks. This
is not just about whether same-sex parents will ever be visible
in children's television, or whether gay people will ever be treated
right in this country. This is about whether the voters of the next
generation will believe that tolerance is a virtue to be encouraged
or a vice to be avoided. These people are playing long ball. We
have to understand the importance of what they are doing, and dedicate
resources to fight it. Otherwise our children - or, well, your children,
in Bush's brave new world I am clearly not entitled to have any
- will grow up not even knowing what tolerance means.
The Plaid Adder's demented ravings have been delighting an
equally demented online audience since 1996. More of the same can
be found at the Adder's
Lair.
*Nope. Not once. The prohibitions on homosexuality
in the Bible are all included either in the Old Testament or in
Paul's letters. Jesus never went on record on the subject. Read
the Gospels if you don't believe me. They're very interesting, and
there's a lot in there that you're never going to see the fundamentalists
discuss. But I digress.
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