Children's video featuring Sponge Bob and Muppets under fire
By The Associated Press
(01/21/05 - NEW YORK) — The producer of a pro-tolerance music video for kids, featuring scores of their TV heroes ranging from the Muppets to SpongeBob SquarePants, said Friday he is astounded that the project has been assailed by some conservatives as a cunning attempt to advocate homosexuality.

"The only response is, 'Wow,"' said Nile Rodgers, a veteran musician and producer whose We Are Family Foundation plans to give away 60,000 copies of the video after it is aired next month on several television networks.

The video itself involves a rendition of the 1979 hit song "We Are Family," that Rodgers co-wrote, and contains no reference to gay rights or sexual orientation.

However, the Mississippi-based American Family Association, in a detailed article by the editor of its monthly journal, insists the endeavor has a pro-gay subtext.

"On the surface, the project may appear to be a worthwhile attempt to foster greater understanding of cultural differences," wrote Ed Vitagliano. "However, a short step beneath the surface reveals that one of the differences being celebrated is homosexuality."

To back his assertions, Vitagliano said the foundation's Web site contained links to other organizations' educational material supporting tolerance of gays and lesbians.

Vitagliano also complained of a "tolerance pledge" found on the We Are Family Web site, borrowed from a civil rights group, which says in part, "To help keep diversity a wellspring of strength and make America a better place for all, I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own."

Rodgers said he asked some of his foundation's officials if they thought the reference to "sexual identity" should be removed from the Web site, and the consensus was to keep it.

"I don't understand their motivation," Rodgers said of his critics. "Nothing could be more devastating to the people who believe in me and our organization than to imply there's an insidious undercurrent to it."

"As I grew older, I've grown to respect people with a different point of view," he said. "The problem with this whole thing is that people are forcing me to be confrontational."

The matter gained attention Thursday, after The New York Times reported that prominent conservative James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, alluded to SpongeBob SquarePants' role in a "pro-homosexual video" during remarks to a pre-inauguration dinner in Washington.

For at least two years, some cultural analysts have mused about whether SpongeBob, a talking sponge, is "gay." Though the cartoon character does have a loyal following among gay men, his creator, Stephen Hillenburg, has described him as an asexual oddball.

In any case, Rodgers stressed that SpongeBob was in the video for only a few seconds, sharing the spotlight with more than 100 other TV characters ranging from Jimmy Neutron to Barney to the Muppets and the Rugrats.

"Focusing on SpongeBob is almost as ludicrous as focusing on the 'sexual identity' reference in the tolerance pledge," he said.

Rodgers said he first thought the criticism was a case of mistaken identity, because some of the initial conservative attacks included a link to the Web site of an unrelated gay-rights group with a name similar to his foundation. But Vitagliano's detailed critique made clear that the "We Are Family" video was indeed the target.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)


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