First it was Tinky Winky, and now SpongeBob SquarePants.

What is it about cartoon characters that the neocon right just doesn’t seem to understand?

This is fiction, people. There’s no hidden agenda here. It’s just a cartoon. Tinky Winky, SpongeBob, Barney and the rest are not equipped with sexual organs or hormones.

And what puts SpongeBob’s intentions in question? A video by the We Are Family Foundation staring SpongeBob, Arthur, Barney, Bear, Big Bird, Clifford, JoJo and over 100 others in which they sing the song “We Are Family.” The video was produced by the We Are Family Foundation together with its partners the Anti-Defamation League, Crown Theatres, Disney Channel, FedEx, Nickelodeon, HIT Entertainment, Nile Rodgers/Sony Publishing/The Bernard Edwards Estate/Warner Chapel, Nelvana, Scholastic, Sesame Workshop, Toni Mendez Shapiro Estate, and WGBH. The video also features cameo appearances by Bill Cosby, Diana Ross and Whoopi Goldberg. It will be distributed to 61,000 elementary schools (public and private ) in the US in March in celebration of the proposed National We Are Family Day.

The We Are Family Foundation supports programs that:

inspire and educate individuals of all ages about diversity, understanding, respect and multiculturalism; and to support those who are victims of intolerance.

All I can figure is that James Dobson, or someone who works for him, googled “We Are Family” and came up with the similarly named We Are Family Organization, a local group in Charleston, SC that bills itself as the “voice of informed straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people who have chosen to love and support our relatives and friends by working to spread truth about homosexuality. Our focus is on young people because they generally feel so desperately alone.” This group doesn’t use cute little cartoon characters as part of its program.

I happen to think that its mission is not a bad idea. But I don’t believe the two groups are involved with each other.

Lighten up, everyone. Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon.

CHORUS
We are family
I’ve got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing!
We are family
I’ve got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing!

Everyone can see we’re together
as we walk on by.
And we fly just like birds of a feather
and we’ll tell no lie.
All of the people around us they say
can they be that close.
Just let me state for the record
we’re giving lovin a family dose

CHORUS

Living life is fun and we’ve just begun to get our share
of this world’s delights
High hopes we had for the future
and our goals in sight
No we don’t get depressed here’s what we call our golden rules
have faith in you and the things you do
you won’t got wrong oh no
this is our family view

CHORUS