From New York Newsday, 1/27/05:
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpmcc274126310jan27,0,50510.column
The Court is next for SpongeBob foes
You can't say we couldn't see it coming.
In 1994 the Rev. Joseph Chambers of Charlotte, N.C., tried to get
Sesame Street's Bert and Ernie banned under under an anti-gay state
law that existed at the time.
The Pentecostal minister said he knew the puppets were gay because in
one episode Bert taught Ernie to sew.
A few years later the Rev. Jerry Falwell attacked Tinky Winky, the
sweet-natured Teletubby on the children's TV show because Falwell
claimed he was modeling the gay lifestyle.
Now James Dobson of the religiously conservative group Focus on the
Family is accusing the producers of a music video for children,
intended to promote social tolerance and featuring scores of beloved
children's show characters, of promoting homosexuality.
Why?
Because it shows SpongeBob SquarePants holding hands with his pal, a
starfish.
That's scandalous behavior if I ever saw it, although I wonder if
Dobson's real concern is over SpongeBob's sexual preference or whether
he's a contraceptive device.
It's too silly, and the affair makes Dobson look ridiculous.
Yet while we laugh at this latest example of overreaching by Christian
conservatives, it doesn't mean we shouldn't take them seriously.
They often see insidious plots in the most innocuous aspects of
popular culture.
Now they're emboldened by support from the Bush administration, and
are claiming credit for his re-election.
While flexing their muscles in the past sometimes felt like a joke,
now it could have serious consequences.
This week a coalition of conservative Christian groups threatened to
withhold their support for the president's plan to remake Social
Security if he doesn't move ahead with a constitutional amendment
banning same-sex marriage.
Not even the Republican-controlled Senate feels the need to push this
right now, but the religious right is demanding action.
Attacking a beloved cartoon character shows just how crazy religious
conservatives can be.
They're especially obsessed with sexual matters, such as reproductive
issues and homosexuality.
And who would have guessed that in 2005 we'd be debating whether to
teach creationism in public schools?
Yet the subject has flared up again in several states.
The scariest thing about the emboldened Christian conservatives,
however, is that these are the people to whom George W. Bush promised
a new Supreme Court - one modeled on the ultra-conservative justices
Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
A few years back Rev. Falwell led a prayer campaign for a new Supreme
Court, and with President Bush poised to appoint several new justices
in the next four years, the SpongeBob and Tinky Winky haters are close
to winning.
The People for the American Way, a progressive political advocacy
group, estimates that if James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and others on the
religious right get their conservative majority on the Court, more
than 100 judicial precedents risk being overturned, turning the clock
back for decades on civil rights, the environment, reproductive
rights, affirmative action, employees rights, and a host of other
issues.
So far only filibusters by Democrats in the Senate have kept a handful
of Bush's most regressive judicial nominees from being confirmed.
But the president and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist want to
eliminate the use of filibusters for judicial nominations.
If they succeed, the president will need only a bare majority of votes
to name anyone he wants to the Court.
Can this be prevented?
Only if Americans from both parties loudly protest such a move.
People need to realize that all religions are threatened when the
government is partial to one.
And pandering to the wishes of Christian conservatives means that many
of the basic rights and freedoms that we take for granted could be
lost.
It's SpongeBob who's getting squeezed today.
But who will it be tomorrow?
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