What is WRONG with some people?

I know I'm not on top of the news and current events so much these days and perhaps I'm a little late in stating my opinion about a matter that really pisses me off past the point of pisstivity (don't try looking that one up in your dictionary), but sometimes I just have to mull stuff over a bit before I can say what I think without using too many curse words.

We live in a great country, probably the greatest democratic country in the world. Hell, we're diversified to the point that we can barely lay claim to being an English speaking nation. But I gotta tell you folks, some of us are amongst the most narrow, spiteful, minded humans in the world.

They're picking on our cartoon characters people! It's like they don't have enough to do with dishing out the complaints about Janet Jackson showing a little flesh on national tv, they've gotta find something wrong with someone as innocent as SpongeBob!

"Two conservative Christian groups are attacking the cartoon character for allegedly being part of, as one of them put it, a "pro-homosexual video."

A man named Dr. James Dobson, founder of a conservative Christian group called "Focus on the Family" addressed members of Congress at a black tie dinner in Washington celebrating the president's election victory this week. He advised the group that SpongeBob had been included in a pro-homosexual video which was to be mailed to thousands of elementary schools to push a tolerance pledge by kids, including tolerance of differences of what Dr. Dobson called "sexual identity." Dr. Dobson said most of the favorite cartoons of America's kids were in on the plot, Barney and Jimmy Neutron included.

There is a video. It was broadcast in 2002 and has been revised for distribution to schools in March. It does promote tolerance of diversity, but contains no reference to sex, sexual lifestyle, sexual identity or Paris Hilton.

The eight-page long teacher's guide that accompanies that DVD makes three passing references to same-sex parents. It contains generic advice about what teachers should do if kids ask them about atypical homes— like ones with adoptive parents, step-siblings, or grandparents. Teachers are advised to remind kids that everybody's family is different, but they're all based on love.

The Christian group sees the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids."

,,,,,,,Keith Olberman, MSNBC News


Dammit, to be great, the country must honestly accept its complex diversity and realize that there is nothing wrong with teaching children that human worth and human equality should not come with a list of exceptions.

It's beyond me to understand why these so-called "family" groups spend so much time scanning the airwaves trying desperately to isolate and obliterate anything they disagree with. Perhaps if they spent less time watching for any signs of flamboyant actions from asexual cartoon characters and spent more quality time with their families, it wouldn't matter what was on television. If these folks are really so narrow minded they can use the "off" button on the freaking tv.