Family Togetherness

Oh, no.

We at the Blasphemy Blog do consider ourselves Christian. However, sometimes we get a bit self-conscious about saying it out loud, or writing it on our blog that anyone is allowed to read. Why?

From the Miami Herald:

A music video that features Barney, Big Bird and
SpongeBob singing a message of family and togetherness will not be distributed
in Broward County schools, after members of a diversity committee deemed it
objectionable...

Officials with the Broward County Christian
Coalition, who viewed the video after hearing from a diversity committee member,
said the underlying message of the DVD and accompanying teaching material
promoted a homosexual agenda.

''We didn't think it was appropriate for such
young children,'' said Barbara Collier, chairwoman of the
coalition...

The controversy stems not from any explicit mention
of homosexuality in the video -- there isn't any -- but from its theme that
people are all part of one big family, a message that, critics contend, could be
construed to include pedophiles and other criminals...

Barney, Big Bird, and SpongeBob singing about togetherness? We do not condone showing such a thing to children, because we do not condone anything featuring Barney.

But should a coalition of Christians expend its energy on preventing the distribution of Barney's togetherness singalong? Are they actually arguing, with straight faces, that children would be harmed by the message that humanity is one big family? Do they actually believe that Big Bird is telling the kids to hang out with their neighborhood bank robber?

The message we take away from the Coalition's argument is that children shouldn't trust anyone but their parents. It's our family against the world, is what they want kids to believe.

It almost sounds like this Coalition is saying that children should stay away from people who are not like them.

Which is enough for us to want to pretend not to be Christian when we're in polite company.