When will Presidential candidates stand up to the hate that Rick Santorum is spreading? What should educators do to counter Santorum’s homophobia?
Santorum’s positions on birth control and black people are no better, but his homophobia is particularly virulent and mean-spirited.
According to the Los Angeles Times, former Pennsylvania Senator and GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum said that children would be better off with a father imprisoned than living with two gay parents.
Santorum, citing the work of what he called an anti-poverty expert, said that “even fathers in jail who had abandoned their kids were still better than no father at all to have in their children's lives."
Allowing gays to marry and raise children, Santorum said, amounts to "robbing children of something they need, they deserve, they have a right to. You may rationalize that that isn't true, but in your own life and in your own heart, you know it's true."
The audience at the private New Hampshire boarding school where Santorum spoke responded with “snorts and applause.” The principal said that three of the students at the school had gay parents.
(In a 2003 interview with the Associated Press Santorum said that gay marriage is no different from "man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.”)
Clearly, people have the right to free speech. But what’s so disturbing is that the person who is saying this is running for President and is treated as a legitimate, mainstream candidate.
New York Times columnist David Brooks in his Jan. 2 column, “Workers of the World, Unite!” credited Santorum as being a champion of the working class. Brooks, often considered a centrist, wrote, “I do believe that he [Santorum] represents sensibility and a viewpoint that is being suppressed by the political system.”
Three days later, Brooks in his Jan. 5 column, “A New Social Agenda,” again praised Santorum, this time for some of his social views. Brooks wrote, “I’m delighted that Santorum is making a splash in this presidential campaign.”
Delighted?
How about ashamed? Outraged?
It’s disturbing, and frightening, that the conversation in this country has shifted so far that intolerant extremists are treated as legitimate, respectable candidates. That mainstream columnists promote proponents of such ideas only makes it more difficult for those attempting to counter the hatred and prejudice that too often affects our students and our schools.
All children and youth need loving parents and caregivers. The sexual orientation of the parents of the children we teach is a non-issue.
Moreover, such a vitriolic statements will likely encourage bullying of children and youth who exhibit characteristics that might be deemed by their peers as not fitting into rigid gender stereotypes.
We as educators have a responsibility to stand up and make sure all students we teach are treated with respect and dignity.
Educators looking for resources on teaching about gay and lesbian issues might go to:
Freedom of speech should be controlled with common sense.
ReplyDeleteSantorum speaks for the moral sanity of this society. There are still those of us who believe that homosexuality is immoral.
ReplyDelete