A Half-fisking of Crackpots


MSNBC's Michael Ventre had quite a lot to say about tolerance, but perhaps he should read his own column

Dr. Reynolds linked and took to task an MSNBC article and I just had to add a bit of fisking to what Dr. Reynolds said. But first, a little back story....

The We Are Family Foundation decided to make a video featuring a number of children's favorite cartoon characters, including SpongeBob, to promote tolerance. This video was to be sent out to some 61,000 schools across the US. This raised the ire of Dobson's Focus on the Family and other groups because it was bundled with the "tolerance pledge" on We Are Family's website, which included sexual identity amongst the things the kids were to pledge to respect. Here's the original story on the Christian group's response to the SpongeBob cartoon.

Now we can get into a few choice passages from Mr. Ventre's article, and observe how the people who preach tolerance the loudest are often the least tolerant people themselves. I'm not going to quote his entire article here, but rather a few highlights that show that his reasoning could just as easily, and perhaps even more appropriately, apply to his own remarks. You should read the entire article first - if for nothing else, you should see the hilarious picture of a SpongeBob float that looks like its going to smash a group of people.

We'll start with Dr. Reynold's observation:
Mr. Ventre: "Since I am a compassionate and tolerant person". . .
Dr. Reynolds: "You know what follows will be neither."

Mr. Ventre: "These CRACKPOT Christians are nothing new. Throughout history there have been dangerous fools of all persuasions who have perverted religious text for their own selfish purposes. What they like to do, in essence, is force-feed their twisted beliefs on others while hiding behind a respectable label, thereby conning folks into thinking that their mean-spirited behavior is really born out of kindness and generosity."

Remember, all of this is in reaction to Christians being upset that public school educators were force feeding (force not only in the sense that education is compulsory, but also because it is paid for by tax dollars forcibly taken from parents) morality to their children, while hiding behind the respectable title of teacher. If you'd like to see mean-spirited, check out this article on how evil parents are for daring to teach their children on their own (I've been meaning to fisk that for a while).

Mr. Ventre: "I know programs exist that can reprogram the insufferably preachy and transform them back into normal people like the rest of us."

Perhaps there is hope for Mr. Ventre himself. I don't see how the tone of this article can be termed anything other than "preachy." I admit that I get quite screedy here myself, but I'm a blogger, not an entertainment reporter.

Mr. Ventre: "They have to get the message that taking the Good Book, living by the parts they agree with and disregarding the parts they don’t, is a learned behavior and can be cured."

Which is different from Mr. Ventre's approach, how exactly? He affirms that he thinks that "Jesus Christ was an important and influential figure in world history" and that he was "a symbol of love and understanding" and yet has no problems ignoring Biblical commands that parents actually have some influence on their children. I also gather from his statements that he thinks that Jesus was merely an important and influential figure, and that he would also throw out the parts of the Bible that clearly affirm Jesus' deity.

Tolerance is not a virtue when it refers to allowing someone to teach your children a morality that you disagree with, especially if those people are being paid to do so by many that was involuntarily taken from you. If that makes me "creepy, rigid, arrogant, cruel, know-it-all, pompous, obnoxious and treacherous" - i.e. a C.R.A.C.K.P.O.T. - then I gladly confess.

Posted: Fri - January 21, 2005 at 06:00 PM | | | | | | |

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