Something to die for

Max Blumenthal has an excellent new piece up at Media Transparency titled "Air Jesus: With The Evangelical Air Force", describing the wonderful time he had covering the National Religious Broadcasters' convention in Anaheim.

The best part is near the end, when he describes an appearance by James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Dobson in fact makes a point rather similar to mine about the whole SpongeBob controversy:

One of few times Dobson spoke out of turn was to make a clarification he had apparently wanted to issue for some time. "I did not say SpongeBob was gay," Dobson told the crowd, responding to media ridicule of his attack on the popular cartoon character:

"All I said was he was part of a video produced by a group with strong linkages to the homosexual community that's teaching things like tolerance and diversity. And you can see where they're going with that. They're teaching kids to think different about homosexuality."

Yes, indeed they are. They're now teaching them that being a "faggot" isn't a license for getting beaten up. The horrors.

Equally interesting were the remarks by Dobson's heir-apparent, his son Ryan:

Like everything else about Dobson, his passive attitude was calculated. The evening was to belong to Ryan, who dominated the discussion with long, blustery yarns about everything from his passion for skateboarding to his views on abortion. With close-cropped hair, gauge earrings and a handlebar mustache reminiscent of the biker from the Village People, Ryan had studiously cast himself as a rebel for Christ. But behind his bad-boy veneer, he is being groomed as the heir to his dad's political empire. Adopted by his parents when he was six months old, Ryan interned for a year at Washington's premier right-wing Christian think tank, the Family Research Council (website), which his father founded, and today is dispatched across the country for speaking engagements before evangelical youth groups, which his father promotes.

While at the NRB, Ryan explained the logic behind his latest book, 2Die4, a sequel to his other ghostwritten masterpiece, Be Intolerant: Because Some Things Are Just Stupid. "Kids today are looking for something to die for, they're looking for a cause," Ryan said. "If you give them something to die for, they'll go to the edge of the earth for you. Kids like that give me hope for revolution in America."

They needn't worry. These folks will always plenty of causes for young Christian soldiers to die for.

See, for instance, the young Christian soldiers currently marching off to war in Iraq. Hey, it sure is going swell there since the election, isn't it?