Not long ago, my six-year-old sister and I lounged on the couch in our innocent, suburban home, watching cartoons as she taught me Cat’s Cradle and organized her Barbie fashion show. We should have gone to church instead.

Little did I know, Nickelodeon’s top-rated show, ‘SpongeBob SquarePants,’ was turning us both gay.

SpongeBob and his friend Patrick, a pink starfish, frolic around an underwater town called Bikini Bottom, canoodling with squirrels in diving gear and men named Mr. Krabs. Pretty gay, right? But there’s more.

Christian crusaders have exposed a scandalous video that the We Are Family Foundation plans to send to 61,000 schools in March. It features SpongeBob, Winnie the Pooh, assorted Muppets and other children’s television stars singing, dancing and promoting tolerance. And just in case that doesn’t brainwash the entire generation, the video is running on Nickelodeon, PBS and the Disney Channel, too.

Enter the American Family Association, a conservative Christian group, not to be confused with the We Are Family Foundation, a bunch of crazy, suntanned Hollywood liberals. The cover story in this month’s AFA Journal warns parents that SpongeBob and his associates are trying to trick their children into believing it’s OK to be gay.

At least Don Wildmon, chairman of the AFA, has the right idea.

‘If you are a person who accepts the homosexual lifestyle, then you are tolerant,’ he said in the article. ‘If you don’t, then you are a bigot who is motivated by ignorance and hate.’

Wait – is he being sarcastic?

The AFA argues that liberals use ‘tolerance’ as a code word to promote the homosexual agenda, and that somehow tolerance is bad. The group is sure that not hating gay people will negatively affect America’s youth, perhaps, as in my sister’s case, by making them hate bed time instead.

And at a recent black-tie event to celebrate the Republican sweep of the national elections, the head of a group called Focus on Family joined the fray. Guess which side he’s on.

In response, the We Are Family Foundation’s lawyer told The New York Times that SpongeBob’s critics ‘need medication.’ But with all these organizations trying to help us build a happy family, I don’t know who to believe.

So I asked my mom how SpongeBob exposure has affected my family. As far as she knows, none of us is gay yet.

‘Your father’s actually the one who watches SpongeBob all the time,’ she said.

That explains a few things.

And my sister, who has survived ‘gay alerts’ on ‘Sesame Street’ and ‘Teletubbies’ unscathed, seems oblivious to the controversy. In fact, she has no idea what tolerance is, because she doesn’t care if you’re a human, a sponge or a starfish.

All she wants is a good cartoon. And they don’t show those in church.