By now, you may have heard that the right-wing scold, Dr. James C. Dobson, is warning America that SpongeBob SquarePants is recruiting for the gay movement. One might recall that a few years ago, Jerry Falwell managed to look pretty foolish with some sort of incoherent claim that one of the TeleTubbies on that kids' show was a bit light in the bunny slippers.
(Actually, to be fairer to the Reverend Falwell than he usually is to his opponents, it sounded to me then like he was being quoted out of context and that his meaning was distorted. But even what he did say was such a doofus statement that you almost couldn't expect foes and comedians to not run with it and exaggerate it into something even dumber.)
So my question is: Did Dr. Dobson not learn from Falwell's becoming a laughingstock? Or is it perhaps deliberate? That he expects to be ridiculed for the statement but also expects some offsetting benefits? I do think a lot of public crusaders, left and right, say outrageous things to get attention. A few years back, we had a low-level public servant down in Orange County who was prone to some really offensive, racist statements. They got him a lot of hate mail…but they also got him a lot of TV air time and a surprising number of campaign donations from folks who liked his message. My sense was that he considered it a great trade-off.
Here's the New York Times article on the outing of SpongeBob, via a link that should not require registration. My sense is that if played right, this is worth at least a week of Leno/Letterman monologues. Which may be exactly what Dobson wants.