Sunday, January 23, 2005

OK, one more word on Dobson, too...

Thanks for the memory, David Sarasohn!

That's what set off Dobson, Focus on the Family and another right-wing group, prompting them to label it a "pro-homosexual video" that urges tolerance of different "sexual identity."

The video -- which begins, with unsettling inclusiveness, "Family, people, monsters, lions, bears, dinosaurs, mice, chickens, aardvarks all coming together. Let's sing together" -- never mentions sex. But it does refer to a tolerance pledge, elsewhere on the "We Are Family" Web site, saying, "I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own."

The pledge won't be included in the material sent to schools, but still, that's enough. After all, we all know what "respect" means.

Explained a Dobson aide, "we see the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids. It's a classic bait and switch." Some people, of course, might not think excessive tolerance for differences -- among races, families and dinosaurs -- is the key problem for our kids.

(Also, in referring to someone who lives under the sea, there's a question of sensitivity in using the word "bait." Cartoon characters have feelings, too.)

But to Ed Vitagliano of the American Family Association, "A short step beneath the surface reveals that one of the differences being celebrated is homosexuality."

With the results of the last election, and certain groups' perceived roles in the Bush victory, Americans are in for a lot of these efforts at purification, aimed at figures animated and otherwise.

We'll especially hear from the rising power broker Dobson, who said of Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., "I don't know if he hates God, but he hates God's people." Later, when asked about it by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Dobson responded loftily, "George, you think you ought to lecture me on what being Christian is all about?"


James Dobson is a "person of the lie" in the sense of Christian psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, who, judging from his book People of the Lie, would quite likely characterize Dobson as evil.

I can't really disagree.

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