What is worth fighting for?

It would seem that last week the waiting masses were given yet another reason to marginalize the message of Christ. As you no doubt heard, James Dobson, president, founder and magnate of Focus on the Family, hit a nerve in his address to some of the nations legislature at a black tie affair celebrating the President's inauguration.

Dobson pointed out that the We Are Family Foundation is distributing a music video starring cartoons and children's show personalities featuring the great disco hit of the same name. The problem that Dobson has with this music video starring cartoons is that the foundation, he states, is an active proponent of tolerance, especially in the areas of "sexual identity". Dobson's remarks have unleashed the usually firefight of snide remarks and chuckles. Olbermann sarcastically might be the most telling when he reports one of the "We are Family Foundation" lawyers as saying, that critics of the video "need medication." Nile Rodgers, writer of "We are Family" says the attack by Dobson and others is "so myopic and harsh."

Focus on the Family officially delivers a very good response citing that they are not against cartoons or against tolerance. In my opinion although it wasn't much of an attack, Writers and TV personalities jumped on it to grab a quick laugh. Some would say that Pundits grabbed the chance to blurt out that Christians are haters...even of cartoon characters like Ron Stoppable and Lil' Bill (two of my favorites, actually in the video) Focus on the Family stands by their position of insisting that it is wrong to have tolerance of sexual identity to be taught to children. In fact they say that all they are doing is "attempting to do for parents what their busy lives prevent them from doing themselves, connecting the dots." (I believe I've just been insulted! But that's another post.)

This discussion is sure to bring up some of the same comments we have already been through here on forerunners. So I don't really don't want to beat a dead horse. (See Clay's thread on Duct Tape.) But I was thinking that all of our interaction here has basically come down to the same basic points that two thinkers, (both much smarter and well...more published than all of us) Chuck Colson and Brian McLaren, have already hashed and rehashed. If you haven't read through these now imfamous point/counterpoints you owe it to yourself to check it out. (I respect both of these guys and have read each of them, so it is kind of interesting to watch them jockey.) They boil it down to some basic questions beginning with, Is there truth and is it defined inside or outside of ourselves? Once defined, how far do you go to defend it? Your answers on this will largely determine how you feel about SpongeBob and James Dobson.