Ray St. Louis
1/31/05
BETWEEN THE LINES
Every now and then, I make the attempt within the confines of this column to link seemingly unrelated
topics. I’m not quite sure why I do this, except that it may have something to do with a split-personality
condition, and my two personalities don’t always agree on what to write about.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Who asked you?”
“Why don’t you cut the amateur psychology baloney and get on with the column about SpongeBob
Squarepants?”
“Don’t you mean the column about my trusty old Swiss Army knife?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t even know you.”
Okay then.
No doubt many of you have heard by now the swirling controversy over remarks made recently by Dr.
James Dobson, founder of a group called Focus on the Family, concerning the possibility that popular
children’s cartoon character SpongeBob Squarepants might be gay.
It seems Sponge Bob along with numerous other cartoon characters appear in a video singing the old
disco classic “We Are Family.” The video’s intent is to promote tolerance of diversity. It is distributed by
the We Are Family Foundation.
Dobson says the words “tolerance” and “diversity” are code words for acceptance of the gay agenda.
One wonders why Dobson doesn’t object to the greater travesty: the We Are Family Foundation’s
blatant promotion of disco music.
But getting back to SpongeBob, the porous one in pants has been known to watch, in his underwater
pineapple home, a TV program featuring two male super heroes (like Batman and Robin?), and has
been seen actually holding hands with his best friend, Patrick, who happens to be a starfish.
But the real problem, according to Dr. Dobson, is the website.
A visit to wearefamilyfoundation.com will reveal, among other things, a tolerance pledge advocating
“respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are
different from my own.”
Well, that’s just terrible. We certainly can’t have cartoon characters promoting rampant tolerance all
over the place. At least not in Dr. Dobson’s world.
Needless to say, Dr. Dobson’s outing of SpongeBob generated a tsunami of unflattering commentaries
(sort like this one) all making the same basic point that Dr. Dobson has way too much time on his
hands.
Dobson has countered by saying he never really said SpongeBob was gay but that he was being used
by the great liberal/homosexual/media conspiracy. He says all he was ever talking about was the
website. He doesn’t know where all this stuff about holding hands with starfish and watching TV shows
featuring dynamic male duos came from.
Which brings us to the subject of my trusty old Swiss Army knife.
“Good grief, you’re not still trying to write that column, are you?”
“Will you be quiet and just listen for a minute. I have a perfectly reasonable connection.”
“You’re nuts.”
“No, you’re nuts.”
So anyway, I was trying to look up online what Dr. Dobson really said in his original remarks at a pro-
family, anti-gay rights forum in Washington, D.C., but my brand new laptop, excuse me, notebook
computer kept freezing up on me.
Did you know that laptops, I mean notebooks don’t come with places to stick in the floppy discs
anymore? I didn’t realize this until I got the laptop, I mean notebook home.
I had to call the store.
“Where do you put in the floppy discs?” I asked.
“Oh, well, notebook computers haven’t come with floppy drives for over six months now.” Six months, it
seems, is a long time in cyber world.
“How am I supposed to read my floppy discs? All my writing is on floppy discs?”
“Well, you could convert then all to CD’s.”
“I don’t want to convert them all to CD’s, I’m quite comfortable with floppy discs.”
“Well, then you’ll have to buy a separate floppy drive and plug it in to your notebook.”
“How much will that cost me?”
“About fifty dollars.”
I hung up the phone and thought about the Swiss Army knife I’d just used to cut the strapping tape on
the box my new laptop, I mean notebook, had come in. I’ve had that same Swiss Army knife for 20
years, and I’m still discovering new uses for it.
I’ve lost the tweezers, busted the tip off the small blade, gotten paint and fiberglass resin on it, and the
big blade badly needs sharpening, but my Swiss Army knife hasn’t become obsolete in 20 years.
“That’s it? That’s your connection?”
“Yeah, you got a problem with that?”
“You changed the topic of the whole column. I was writing a column about SpongeBob, you idiot.”
“Well, I wanted to write about my Swiss Army knife, you nincompoop.”
“You want to take this outside?”
“After you, buddy.”
I think my competing personalities need a lesson in tolerance. Might be time to watch some
SpongeBob.