I must apologize to my readers for not weighing in sooner on the crisis involving the "gay-tolerant" Spongebob Squarepants. I have been extremely busy out here, and what time I have that hasn't been sucked up by other things has been spent repairing computers. The latter, even when they work, are nowhere near as fast as my DSL connection back East, which has spoiled me.
At any rate, via InstaPundit, I see that James Dobson is most annoyed about Spongebob Squarepants' gay tolerance. Apparently, he thinks that tolerance is synonymous with promotion of homosexuality. I'm not quite sure I follow the logic there, because tolerance is not defined. It would seem to me that tolerance means tolerance not only of homosexuals (who of course practice homosexuality by definition), but it might also mean tolerance of whatever it is that "promotion" means. Religious tolerance means more than tolerating religion; it means tolerating the promotion of religion. Tolerance is of course a two way street, and it always struck me that if promotion is tolerated, then opposition to promotion must also be tolerated. Otherwise, promotion becomes intolerant. But if intolerance is promoted, it can eventually cancel the tolerance which allows it in the first place.
Anyway, it's convoluted as hell, but I'm against intolerance of any sort, and I think James Dobson really ought to choose his targets more carefully. In any event, preaching tolerance is not the same as promoting homosexuality because tolerance -- even tolerance of promotion -- is not promotion.
What strikes me as being worse than James Dobson's intolerance of Spongebob Squarepants is San Francisco's intolerance of dog sex. According to SF Weekly's Matt Smith San Francisco is downright puritanical where it comes to what used to be considered canine nature:
In my day there were parks, riverbeds, alleyways, and railway beds where dogs could meet, hook up, and make love obscured from the embarrassing gaze of human beings.
Sadly, in San Francisco, spaces of this sort are off limits to animal love, thanks to a blue law in the city's Health Code that says it's illegal for animals to "breed on public property," excepting places such as the University of California at San Francisco hospital, where researchers may spawn rats, monkeys, and whatnot.
You can imagine my pleasure, therefore, when I noticed a package of legislation on last week's Board of Supervisors agenda aimed at improving the lives of San Francisco dogs. I was happier still when the package passed Tuesday, a story that was picked up by more than a hundred newspapers around the country, which reported on the seemingly ultrahumane, generous provisions of the new law that require owners to provide doghouses complete with blankets and raised floors for their pets.
And I was ecstatic when I learned the dog-law package was sponsored by Supervisor Bevan Dufty, ordinarily an open-minded person when it comes to issues regarding sexual freedom.
It turns out, however, that Dufty's supposed dog sop is not really very humane at all, as it leaves the anti-humping statute on the books.
"Personally, I think it is a good law," said Carl Friedman, director of San Francisco's Department of Animal Care and Control, to whom Dufty's office referred me for comment on the new dog "rights" laws. The anti-humping law, Friedman said, "should stay on the books."
I could expect to see support for such laws coming from James Dobson. But San Francisco officials?
What the hell is going on? Do they think that tolerating dog sex actually promotes it?
posted by Eric on 01.23.05 at 09:24 PM
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The sexes are different, psychologically as well as physically. A man writes differently from a woman. This extremely interesting spectrum book, Maximum Liberty: An Introduction to the Scope and Form of Government, was written and published anonymously, for some reason that's none of my business. But I could tell by reading that it was written by a man, a very interesting man. Just the _style_ of the way he wrote makes me think it was a "he" that wrote it. An INTJ, certainly. Ayn Rand was an INTJ, too, and she used a similar spectrum, but she wrote in a quite different _style_.
I hate to have to say it, I know it sounds like Transcendental Science, but most of the ideological spectra I have encountered so far were devised by men. We need a Transcendental Femocracy, more spectrums by women. Not that such are not to be found. I have a book by a woman that has a circular spectrum. Once again, the difference between the male and the female.
The difference between the male and the female, other than their physical form (the linear vs. the encircling) is a subtle difference in their _styles_, which would be reflected in the _styles_ of their spectrums. E.g., Mr. Bricker's government spectrum is quite different in _style_ from Dawn's and Norma's theological spectrum, though the two correspond in many ways.
That anti-dog-eat-dog law, written by a cat obviously, is the exact opposite of the law in Texas befor June 26, 2003. In Texas, it was illegal for a man to make love to a man or a woman to make love to a woman, but legal for a man to make love to a dog or other non-human animal. In San Francisco, dog sex is frowned upon, but a man is free to make love to a man, a woman to make love to a woman.
This whole "Sponge" controversy is silly, if you ask me. As one of Jack T. Chick's villains would say: "HAW! HAW!" In Dean's World, Joe Gandelman started an extremely interesting thread from it.
Here are some things I wrote in it:
If Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, sees anything remotely sexual in a goofy-looking cartoon character who looks like a sponge, then I submit that he (Dr. Dobson) is an evil influence on kids. Ditto with Jerry Falwell and those "Tele-Tubbies". I know I'm perverted, but to me that's disgusting, I have to say!
At the other extreme are those Naturalistic liberal intellectuals who can watch a nude woman covering herself with chocolate and say "It's not about sex, it's about oppression in the Third World, blah, blah, blah...."
1.20.2005 1:56pm
Another excellent discussion.
Scott Harris wrote:
"Freedom is also a Christian principle - the idea being that one must be free to reject God in order to freely choose Him. But the choices are NOT morally equivalent. Evil does not equal Good. And the freedom to choose to do evil does not validate the evil choice."
Excellent. That's all I ask of any of you: Freedom. Freedom above all. Even if you believe I'm going to Hell because of the way I choose to excercise it. Both Tom Hawkson (aka, my old friend Wince) and Scott Harris have long ago earned my respect as Christians who respect my freedom, and IB Bill's statement is very good, too. I agree on abortion, in particular.
I disagree with all of you on homosexuality. I'm one of those you mentioned who gives hearty approval to those of that type of orientation (both the androsexual and the gynosexual). I admire men's men and I worship Lesbian women, Lesbianism. I don't want to live in a world without homosexuals, homosexuality.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that. I respect your right to believe that I'm going to the Devil (along with Andrew Ian Dodge and Arnold Harris, I'll be in good company while sizzling in the Lake of Fire), and I respect the honesty of your beliefs. I am not at all tolerant of the enemies of my freedom, but I respect those who, while they believe I'm on the road to perdition, will nonetheless defend my right to choose that road, as I will defend to the death their rights.
1.21.2005 12:16pm
I was a sissy as a boy, but that didn't make me a man's man, quite the opposite. I don't see anything sexy in any of these "kewpie doll" characters kids are watching these days. I have to say the thought of it disgusts me, and I know how deviant I am. There wasn't anything sexual in most of the cartoon characters I grew up with: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, etc.. Popeye and Olive Oyl were heterosexual, as was Bluto. Betty Boop was a symbol of sex, though I was too young to grasp the significance of what she represented.
Back in the 1950s, Dr. Frederick Wertham wrote a book, "The Seduction of the Innocent", on crime and perversion in comic books. Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, all were exposed for their deviant tendencies. Congress held hearings, and the Comics Code was introduced. I must say that Dr. Wertham had quite a case, much better than Falwell or Dobson. Certain cartoon shows and other shows, comic strips, fairy tales, and myths, did subliminally influence me or resonated with me on a deep level. E.g., Agent 99 in "Get Smart" really turned me on, I must say. Those were great shows back then, much better than what kids are watching today.
I agree that none of this belongs in the schools. If parents want to teach their kids that homos are going to Hell, that's their business. The schools should stick to, or go back to, teaching the basics: reading, writing, math, science, geography, history.
1.23.2005 1:29am
IB Bill asked:
"SMA: I gotta ask: If Agent 99 turned you on, what happened?"
I masturbated a lot!
Were you under the impression that I was a man's man because of the way I extol homosexuality? Oh, no. I'm afraid I'm not man enough to be a man's man. I'm not straight enough to be a man's man. I'm drawn to curves, to the Sinuous Paths of Sin, to the Eternal Encircling Feminine, to the Goddess. I admire men's men, but I worship Lesbians, Lesbianism, Sapphism, the Eternal Holy Embrace of Tribadism.
Yes, Ginger and Mary Ann turned me on also. I loved that episode when Olive Oyl had to eat spinach and battle a female Bluto. I was always turning the Boy Wonder into a Girl Wonder in my imagination. I loved the Batgirl. Supergirl, too. And the Catwoman. I will never forget that fantastically evil commercial where a woman got mad at another woman for recommending the wrong detergent and tied her up and stuffed her into her couch and sat on her. Detective Honey West was once tied to a chair and put in a crate by some evil female criminal. Other things like that. "The Little Girl Who Trod On A Loaf". Dorothy and Ozma in Oz. Inanna the Queen of Heaven vs. Ereshkigal the Queen of the Underworld. The Eternal Holy Myth.
Holy Dawn and her holy Negro wife Norma vs. wicked Wanda and her women (Wendy, Cindy, Sandy, Candy, Brandy, Brenda, Glenda, Stella, Hannah...)....
1.23.2005 8:57pm
By the way, please don't confuse Dr. James Dobson of "Focus on the Family" with Dr. John Dobson, the astronomer and inventer of the Dobsonian telescope. I've met the latter Dr. Dobson at a couple of astronomy gatherings. He is an extremely interesting fellow.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
The sexes are different, psychologically as well as physically. A man writes differently from a woman. This extremely interesting spectrum book, Maximum Liberty: An Introduction to the Scope and Form of Government, was written and published anonymously, for some reason that's none of my business. But I could tell by reading that it was written by a man, a very interesting man. Just the _style_ of the way he wrote makes me think it was a "he" that wrote it. An INTJ, certainly. Ayn Rand was an INTJ, too, and she used a similar spectrum, but she wrote in a quite different _style_.
I hate to have to say it, I know it sounds like Transcendental Science, but most of the ideological spectra I have encountered so far were devised by men. We need a Transcendental Femocracy, more spectrums by women. Not that such are not to be found. I have a book by a woman that has a circular spectrum. Once again, the difference between the male and the female.
The difference between the male and the female, other than their physical form (the linear vs. the encircling) is a subtle difference in their _styles_, which would be reflected in the _styles_ of their spectrums. E.g., Mr. Bricker's government spectrum is quite different in _style_ from Dawn's and Norma's theological spectrum, though the two correspond in many ways.