“The year of living indecently”

Frank Rich, as always, has an excellent piece of media commentary in today’s NYTimes.

"That our government is now both intimidating PBS and awarding public money to pundits to enforce "moral values" agendas demonizing certain families is the ugliest fallout of the campaign against indecency. That campaign cannot really banish salaciousness from pop culture, a rank impossibility in a market economy where red and blue customers are united in their infatuation with "Desperate Housewives." But it can create public policy that discriminates against anyone on the hit list of moral values zealots. Inane as it may seem that Ms. Spellings is conducting a witch hunt against Buster or that James Dobson has taken aim at SpongeBob SquarePants, there's a method to their seeming idiocy: the cartoon surrogates are deliberately chosen to camouflage the harshness of their assault on nonanimated, flesh-and-blood people."

Once again I continue to ponder how it is that Christians (because that's the primary group who is objecting to these things), keep missing the forest for the trees. It's not as if anyone HAS to watch any of these shows. And if people are worried about what their kids might be seeing, then how come they're not watching the shows WITH them? Why do conservatives believe it's government's role to protect us from challenging issues?