On 'Protecting' Children from Gay People (and Reality)
Emphasis mine:
“My concerns are that our children in our schools could be taught some liberal agendas because of the marriage amendment,” [Minnesota state Rep. Mary Franson (R)] insisted. “Because in the schools they may be taught that, [homosexuality] is normal behavior. I personally do not believe it is.”
“Massachusetts, as a matter of fact, right after the 2003 court ruling [legalizing marriage equality] there was a school-wide assembly celebrating same sex marriage,” Franson noted. “Then, and a few months later, the middle school was celebrating same sex marriage. And a year after that bill passed, schools went as far as elementary children having celebrations of the same-sex marriage, of gay pride. School books in Massachusetts, also in the libraries had this issue as normalizing it for our young children.”
“And that’s something that I wish to protect our children from,” she concluded.
Oi. Where do I begin?
First off, a special note to Miss Franson: you don’t think of homosexuality as ‘normal behavior’, but that doesn’t give you the right to turn your personal bigotry into a discriminatory law.
As for protecting children from the idea that gay people exist…well, I’ll quote an old saying that I keep tucked away for situations like this: ‘Don’t argue with reality — you’ll lose 100% of the time.’ Even if a parent could somehow keep their children from figuring out that gay people exist in this world until their 18th birthday, what good would that do?
You don’t teach children respect and tolerance for other people by pretending an entire segment of the population you find ‘icky’ doesn’t exist.
