God dang it

If you watch King of the Hill, you hear Hank Hill say it all the time: "God dang it." And nobody bats an eye, nobody writes in to complain about the horribly offensive language in a cartoon that airs before 8PM on Sunday.

On the other hand, if someone says "God damn it" on TV, it will literally melt the faces off every member of the FCC and cause Rev. Donald Wildmon's head to explode. (I may be misusing the word "literally" here. Which is a shame; wouldn't it be great to see that anti-Semitic, homophobic, hate-spewing, self-aggrandizing jackass's head go Scanners?)

Why does that minor change between "dang" and "damn" mean the difference between being broadcast in a cartoon during family hour, and being completely banned from network television?

What is the offensive word in the phrase? "God"? If so, then why is "God dang it" acceptable? "Damn"? If so, then why is it acceptable in practically every other non-God-connected context? (I say "practically" because I still don't think you're gonna be hearing "damn" on, say, Little Einsteins any time soon.)

I've never been able to understand the Christian activists' success in banning the phrase "God damn it" from broadcast TV, and I also don't understand their nonchalance over the slightly sanitized but similarly intentioned "God dang it." Gee, inconsistent, hypocritical behavior from religious activists. What a shocker.