"2005-01-22 14:00:44 Yahoo News

Christian Conservative groups have shown their true faces again, They're afraid of something they can't understand and are afraid that hearing about it might actually affect their children.

This is why come Christian Conservative groups have issued a gay alert warning against a video which is a remake of "We are Family". The video is to encourage tolerance and diversity. there are over 100 TV cartoon stars used in the video amongst them are SpongeBob, Barney, Winnie the
Pooh, Bob the Builder and the Rugrats. The main character responsible for promoting homosexuality, according to the Christian groups, is SpongeBob Squarepants.

Now you wonder why exactly Spongebob is considered by those groups as the culprit, That's because he's always holding the hand of his friend Patrick.

Christian Conservative groups have
issued a gay alert warning over a children's video starring
SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney and a host of other cartoon
favorites.

The wacky square yellow SpongeBob is one of the stars of a
music video due to be sent to 61,000 U.S. schools in March. The
makers -- the nonprofit We Are Family Foundation -- say the
video is designed to encourage tolerance and diversity.

But at least two Christian activist groups say the innocent
cartoon characters are being exploited to promote the
acceptance of homosexuality.

Essentially in my opinion those Christian groups are in favor for diversity and tolerance as long as everybody are exactly like them.

People should never think of it as loving your neighbour, and just to be nice to each other. Put it differently, put a negative twist on it and hey you might get more extremists joining your group and they can all share their limited view on the world."

From http://www.curlio.com/new_showarticle.php?id=6695

Also from this link


"By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES - Christian Conservative groups have issued a gay alert warning over a children's video starring SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney and a host of other cartoon favorites.

The wacky square yellow SpongeBob is one of the stars of a music video due to be sent to 61,000 U.S. schools in March. The makers -- the nonprofit We Are Family Foundation -- say the video is designed to encourage tolerance and diversity.

But at least two Christian activist groups say the innocent cartoon characters are being exploited to promote the acceptance of homosexuality.


"A short step beneath the surface reveals that one of the differences being celebrated is homosexuality," wrote Ed Vitagliano in an article for the American Family Association."

Gay alert?????

Did anyone warn Cary Sherman about this one? He should be alert.

Here we have a picture of that Pie-Faced Goo-Head Jerry Falwell, dressed in his casual clothes, going to a meeting on this matter of this dangerous kid video which will undoubtably convert all children to being gay....
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/televangelists/jerry-falwell/tinky.jpg

Nope, nothing Gay about Jerry Falwell...see this manly picture of him...
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/cult/sun-myung-moon/falwell_moon.jpg

Before you can join a Christian advocacy group you have to molest a child and kill a gay. Or maybe that's what you have to do to become a Christian.. not sure.

I don't know about the gay thing.. my beef is with the smart wonder who invented a pants wearing, walking talking yellow sponge, and made a cazillion dollars off of the children.... madder yet that I didn't think of it first

A short step beneath Ed's surface reveals hatred, followed closely by fear, and feelings of inadequacy. God forbid we should practice tolerance. (Sorry, pepe, couldn't help myself--these people are pseudo-Christians.)

Christ said "A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another,
as I have loved you, says the Lord."

It seems to me that those that practice a religion of hatred and fear against gays, are farther from the spirit of Yeshua ben Jospeh than those they hate.

If these people have delirious imaginations with cartoons, I wonder how they interpret the bible? Perhaps they first need to use the pages as rolling paper to light up.

one reason why I wonder if Jesus really wanted a religion formed around his words. How i despise those who use it to promote hatred and molest, rape and kill women and children.

dogpile, it sounds like their imaginations are already in overgear...

I bet Jerry Falwell and Ed Vitagliano could find Osama bin Laden if they suspected he was gay.

If a kitchen sponge holding hands with a starfish is gay, I shudder to think what's going on in my daughter's room, where there are untold number of dolls and toys from McDonalds all cohabitating together. There's Woody and his close friend Buzz Lightyear, Fred Flintstone and Dino going for a ride together, two Furbys of obviously separate racial descent, not to mention G.I. Joe (a gift from her cousin), who is sleeping in a plastic tub with 15 naked Barbie dolls.

Homophobia knows no bounds nor shame it seems.

Folks, I gotta say this. I have known many gays over time. They have a second sense about who is or who is not of like belief. During all that time, I have never had so much as one single one of them hit on me. Never had a single experience of one of them with the idea of rape on his mind. You respect them, they respect you. Pretty simple really.

From what I see in the papers, there is more to fear of priests hitting on children than gays...

"Before you can join a Christian advocacy group, you have to molest a child and kill a gay. Or maybe that's what you have to do to become a Christian...not sure."

Unnecessarily offensive.

Before you can join an atheist advocacy group, you have to molest a child and kill a Christian. Or maybe that's what you have to do to become an atheist...not sure.

Unnecessarily offensive.

". . . These people are pseudo-Christians."

That really says it all.

"I'm Gumby , Damnit" - Eddie Murphy on Saturday Nite Live....

What bothers me about these "pseudo-Christians" or "Faux-well" Christians, is their perversion and corruption of the beautiful themes of Yeshua ben Joseph. Even if you are an atheist, I believe the teachings of Christ are decent and reasonable and constitute a good way to live.

He taught to love and forgive...not hate and wage a constant war against your fellow man.

I aspire to follow the teachings of Yeshua, but I dare not raise MYSELF to say I am Christ-like, because that is a standard I personally fall far short of...I am petty at times, egotistical, tend to bear grudges...but at least I am trying as I get older to do better (and believe it or not, in the past 35 years, I've mellowed A LOT!).

That being said, these "pretenders to the throne" should be ashamed of themselves, and at times, I have felt they deserved a special place in Hades for their leading people astray with their religiohatrosity (yes, I just made that up ).

There is much sin to be laid at the feet of organized religion. I believe to some extent, the celibacy of priests played a part in the whole pedophilia thing. There is nothing in the Bible that says Jesus did not take a wife. It never says he was a virgin, and indeed, he is called "rabbi" or teacher, and it was the custom then, as it is now, for rabbis to marry and have children.

To some, this is heresy, and I confess I cannot understand why. We were told to "be fruitful" (and the procreative meaning of this is fairly undisputed)...and sex is a God given (if you are religious) gift to humans and other animals. So, why would Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene be sacriligeous in any way. In fact, if the whole purpose of Jesus / Yeshua coming to other was to be "God made flesh", how better to be fully human than to have the most natural of human experiences, i.e. having a loving relationship , and making a family.

For more on that, google HOLY CROSS, HOLY GRAIL
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Blood,_Holy_Grail )

At any rate, this homophobia seems to me to be an overly obsessive concern with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the KJV of the Bible.

Homosexuals aren't out to take over your kids or convert heterosexuals.
In fact, if there is anyone who is overly aggressive trying to convert you to their way of life, it's the "pseudo-Christians" or "Faux-well" bunch.

There are decent people who are Christians, decent Pagans, decent Atheists, decent homosexuals, decent heterosexuals.

In my book, there are two types of people....good folks and jerks, and they come in every sex, every sexual orientation, every race, every ethnicity, every religion, every profession, every trade, every country, etc..

I say, let's worry more about trying to clean our own vessel, and get the camel out of our own eye, before we start telling others how to live THEIR lives!

AMEN!

You got that right, Code. I never have a problem with people who are Christians--but I have a huge problem with people who profess to be, but don't act like Christians. I do believe in right and wrong, and most of the Christian faith is clear on that. But some people pervert it and make it dark and vengeful, and that's when I'm out the door. And someone trying to convert me really pisses me off. I like to live and let live... AMEN!

"You got that right, 'Code. I never have a problem with people who are Christians--but I have a huge problem with people who profess to be, but don't act like Christians."

If only pseudo-Christians could see themselves like we see them!

"Before you can join an atheist advocacy group, you have to molest a child and kill a Christian. Or maybe that's what you have to do to become an atheist...not sure."

hahaha. You said I was offensive and then proceeded to one-up me by not only throwing it back at me, but stereotyping me (anti-religion) as an atheist. What is this obsession? If you don't like democrats, then you're automatically conservative. If you mock catholocism (or whoever) for raping children, then you're automatically an atheist. Why does that have to be my religion? I'm not religious, for the 800th time. I can't even imagine what kind of "logical" connection led you to make that assumption in the first place.

The 'logical' connection was to throw what you said back at you to show how offensive it could be for Christians.
I took an extreme position only as a type of tactic -- not to be stereotyping you personally on an assumption that you yourself are an atheist as opposed to merely irreligious.
I just wanted to show how goofy it would sound at the other extreme end of the spectrum, that's all — and I had figured that my adding the words "unnecessarily offensive" at the conclusion of BOTH would get that point across.
There's a good chance that most of the readers got what I was driving at: quoting your statement and then adding the opposite as a type of rhetorical response for effect.
But I guess my idea wasn't foolproof. Oh well, for all I care, you can call me a horse's ass, and my life will likely still go on as before.

Incidentally, one of my main missions in life is searching for truth, as opposed to being a paragon of logic (the latter is too much to live up to).

interesting thoughts....

"eligiohatrosity "

Uh...is this now covered under copyright, or do you think you could use it as a trade mark?

Seriousely, great word...Maybe we should put together a list of buzz words that we could use in coversations with others. It might put us one up on the RIAA since they only "steal and pirate" words and change their meaning as their method of propogating hype.

alert..

be alert..

we need more lerts.

I agree TotallyFrust...

I will submit one or two...

Intellectual property terrorism - a campaign of litigation against those trying to change the Copyright Laws to allow more flexibility in defining Fair Use.

Copyright Cartel - Big Media companies who both rip off artists, and attack their own customers through frivilous lawsuits.

Yeah I get it. Making extreme points is a great way to illustrate something to people. But when I do it in a discussion that involves religion in some way I don't start calling people different religions. That wouldn't make any sense. And no, you did call me an atheist. You didn't just pull a random religion out of the air. For more on this, read about aforementioned 'obsession.' My criticism made me an atheist..

Not being a paragon for logic doesn't give you a free pass to say things that don't make any sense only to defend yourself with "well, i'm not a paragon for logic."

Are you just wanting to argue for argument's sake, or are you hoping to bait me into telling you where you can go?

In regard to what you wrote about saying things that don't make sense:
Your initial post (6:28 p.m., 1/22) is the one that began all this -- and it is devoid of good sense.

"Yeah, I get it. Making extreme points is a great way to illustrate something to people."

That's what happened. An extreme comment on your part (your initial post of 6:28 p.m., 1/22) prompted an extreme rhetorical reaction on my part.

In retrospect, neither was the wisest course of verbiage.

And, yeah, as I indicated before, you can designate me as a horse's ass if it makes your day.
Aren't you glad that you don't deserve that kind of designation yourself?

No, you replied and were wrong. You said you didn't assume I was something when you actually did, and you also clearly implied that not being a paragon for logic makes it ok to not use logic. I wasn't saying you didn't use any, but your statement says that if you didn't, then that would be ok. My post didn't begin anything. You calling me an atheist for some unknown reason did. If you think I'm arguing for the sake of arguing, why are you wasting your time?

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that this article has nothing to do with boycotting RIAA, so we're left with nothing better to do in this space.

1. Using the other extreme of a spectrum for a certain desired effect as I did wasn't 'wrong' in the sense of how you accuse me, but it turned out to not be understood by everyone (so in that sense it was less than wise).
2. Nope, there was not intent to label you personally as an atheist. Go through everything again; you just made that leap yourself...but again, upon my re-reading everything, it still goes back to what I admitted about my extreme rhetoric as a ploy not turning out to be the best...but NOT because I made a presumption...no presumption intended.
3. In regard to the logic issue: You were first to bring up a logic issue (see your post of 5:38 a.m.), not me. When you first mentioned it, it was as if you were chiding me for not making good sense. That still goes back to my inadvisable notion of reacting by taking your initial offensive post and running the opposite direction with it for the effect of showing how offensive either extreme statement would be (yours and an opposite one that I provided) which was not meant to be a reflection on your personal belief system. After all, how could I be in a position to know if you believed in God or not? People can believe in God (or a god) without being Christians, and that doesn't make them atheists (as you correctly pointed out.) Naturally, it would be foolish for a person to not consider that.
4. You've written that "my statement says that if I didn't use logic, that would be okay".
You brought up the logic issue first. I'll stand by my comment about logic not being the first priority in my life. But it does not automatically follow from my comment (about not being a paragon of logic) that I would be excusing any departure from logic as some workable method of convenient escape to avoid an error. Again, you've made a leap, there, my friend.
(BTW, I'm guessing you know how judges react to speculations or assumptions. Even circumstantial evidence doesn't merit credibility in and of itself.)
5. You are correct about us having nothing better to do in this current thread. Oh, well. . .

This reminds me of when religious leaders were claiming the teletubbies were gay. Why are they so obsessed with gay people? It's like when they have no one to hate, they aren't happy. These people have serious issues.

I guess all the kids watching those "gay" cartoon characters are going to grow up to be big flamers the same way every kid who grew up seeing straight people has only grown up to be straight... wait a second, nevermind. Idiots!

Yeah, I saw this on Witchvox. Makes me glad that my religion is mostly represented by fruitcakes who think they were Merlin in a past life. Dobson and Falwell are good for so many laughs. Personally I'd rather have them yelling about Spongebob than stumping for creating a Christian America. No thanks, not looking forward to being burned at the stake.

i'm anti-christian, i'm not ashamed to say it. they are why we had the dark ages. they were those who provoked the crusades. and now, we are all putting up with them trying to promote their religion in our schools, our country. but oh well. there are good christian people, as code mentioned. there are good in everyone. i just think that the christian religion has less good people than the average for other groups.

bah

christians aren't trying to promote ANYTHING in our schools.

religion is terrible and destructive (among other things), so I'm with you there. But there are almost NO cases of it being PUSHED on anybody in public schools in this country.

Kids get kicked out of schools for wearing certain christian-themed t-shirts. Christianity is politically incorrect in many places nowadays. It's very confusing when you try to find out who is for/against what and who is pushing/forcing something down our throats.

I think you're dead wrong about christianity being forced on people though.

well, some christians may be trying to promote things, but people are always trying to promote things no matter what group they belong to.

I mean as a whole. There's no large-scale movement that is trying to push christianity into schools. There are a lot of people, however, who are trying to keep things how they have been (just fine) for the last several decades. Those people are frequently mislabeled.

"There's no large-scale movement that is trying to push christianity into schools."

Various fundamental Christian organizations have been trying to take over school boards for the past 20 years or so.

"The National Association of Christian Educators (NACE) was founded
in 1983 as a 501(c)(3), non-profit, tax-exempt organization. Citizens
for Excellence in Education (CEE) is a division of NACE. ... The main priority is to elect conservative Christians to school boards."

http://www.skepticfiles.org/fw/nacecee.htm

In the Life probes Right's infiltration of school boards “If we can have people of faith on the school board we can change this culture, we can change the public school…” -Rev. Bill Banuchi, Executive Director, NYS Christian Coalition. In “Hostile Takeover,” In the Life exposes the coordinated, but quiet decade-long campaign waged by conservative Christians to take over public school boards across the country. Through interviews with people on both sides of a local New Hampshire struggle and an interview with Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, In the Life explores both the local and national implications of this development.

http://ec.gayalliance.org/articles/000583.shtml

Do some googling and you can find a lot more.

There are Christian schools run by Christian board members all over North America...people have a choice if that is what they want for their children.

Christian board members in the secular school system only desire to see childrens habits molded for the common good for us all....not trying to "make new Christians" It's not an "agenda" (wouldn't you sooner see the little darlings spreading love, rather than bullets?)

"christians aren't trying to promote ANYTHING in our schools."

Intelligent design is actively being promoted in schools across the country and has been since 1999, when Kansas "attempted to downplay the importance of Darwinism by removing from the required statewide science curriculum references to dinosaurs, the geological timeline and other central tenets of the theory" of evolution.

These people seem to forget the difference between a theory and a hypothesis.

As for "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," I would prefer to get my information from the non-fiction portion of the bookstore.

pepe, I would sooner see them spread love than christianity. But then there's that damned sex education bull they are spreading in the schools. If they could just tell the truth, kids aren't all that stupid. But they need the facts, not out-and-out lies about their bodies and their responsibilities. Just tell the truth....

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

-Upton Sinclair