Articles in the secular media claimed Tinky Winky and SpongeBob were gay before the Falwell and Dobson controversies broke. The original idea in both cases may have come from the gay community, but the press was pushing the idea the characters were gay before the press started accusing Falwell and Dobson of outing the children's television characters.

One of Falwell’s employees, J. M. Smith, senior editor of Liberty Journal, a periodical put out by Falwell’s organization, mentioned the rumors that were circulating in the press that Tinky Winky was gay as part of an article on children’s television. The press picked up on this and said that Falwell was outing Tinky Winky. Falwell says he had never seen the program.

Dr. Dobson made a speech in Washington in association with the inauguration of the younger President Bush in which Dobson said that the We Are Family Foundation was pushing a pro homosexual agenda, including a "pledge of tolerance" to school children. The We Are Family Foundation is sending a video out to more than 60 thousand schools which features many characters from children's television. Dobson says that both the video and the many children's television characters are innocent. That suggests that Dobson does not think either the video or the characters, including Sponge Bob, are homosexual or pushing a homosexual agenda. Nevertheless the media has left the public with the impression that Dobson is saying SpongeBob is a homosexual.

By the way, I am not a fan of Dobson or Falwell, as you will note this is a Catholic web site. My point is that it is the press, not the clergy who wants to out children's televison characters.

In 2006 I saw on Google news a little article on Superman being a homosexual. This was related to the release of the "Return of Superman" Movie. It made me wonder what religious leader will be accused of outing Superman.

I am kidding here, they have been saying that Batman and Robin are homosexuals for many years and so far the media have not tried to accuse any famous religious leader with outing Batman. But who knows. Perhaps religious leaders should carefully avoid mentioning either Superman, Batman, or any cartoon character.

Jerry Falwell died and the press honored him by recycling the falsehood that he outed Tinky Winky. Being very ecological the mainstream press is into recycling.