[Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) ] went further and “said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn’t be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who’s sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn’t be in the classroom.”
Controversy over DeMint’s position on this issue first arose in 2004 during a Senate debate, when he was asked whether he agreed with the state party’s platform that said openly gay teachers should be barred from teaching public school. DeMint said he agreed with that position because government shouldn’t be endorsing certain behaviors.
[…]”(When I said those things,) no one came to my defense,” DeMint said on Friday in Spartanburg. “But everyone would come to me and whisper that I shouldn’t back down. They don’t want government purging their rights and their freedom to religion.”
So, let me get this logic straight:
1. Your religion thinks homosexuality and sex before marriage is a sin.
2. Freedom of religion makes it so your religion must be followed by every person in this country, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof.
3. Therefore, allowing these sinful people to have jobs and interact with children is repressing your beliefs.
…
Yeah, can someone please this Senator how our Constitution works?
This would be laughable if he was just some kook for thinking this way. Unfortunately, this sense of entitlement is common and has real effects on people. An Oregon teacher was just reassigned to a different school district because he answered a 4th grader honestly when asked why he wasn’t married – because he loves a man and marriage is not legal for them in Oregon.
Yep, because it’s better that we extoll the virtues of lying than be honest about something any 4th grader probably already knows about just from watching tv. Gotta love those traditional, Christian values that deem certain types of love inappropriate.
Oh, but “freedom of religion”–at least according to the RRRW–trumps your right to anything else.
Well, she probably shouldn’t be sleeping with her boyfriend in the classroom, but other than that it should probably be ok.~Rhaco
Yes, they feel it is their right to make sure they control everyone.
I’ve always questioned the logic of allowing South Carolina back into the Union.http://www.laughinginpurgatory…
Some of the people in South Carolina are OK.Really, it’s just that we don’t get elected.
Oh yeah, there are sane, reasonable folks in S.C.Under my proposed system the sane people would be granted full US citizenship. The other folks would be sent to the circus to work as circus clowns.
It’s against my religion for fucking nitwits to hold office. Jim DeMint is violating my first amendment rights.
If someone thinks their [religious] beliefs should dictate who has rights and who does not, they shouldn’t run for election to government (but I have no right to stop them).
Ahh those crazy republicans, who believe that government should be small. So small it will fit inside peoples bedrooms…
This is why, after six years of being openly bi, I shamefully crawled back into the closet. I’m currently working on my teaching credential, and I don’t want to worry about parents reactions or administrator/government freakouts, or what have you. Fortunately, my outward appearance has always been very heteronormative, so I don’t have to actively lie to people, just not mention that before my current boyfriend I had a girlfriend and I continue to think women are slightly more attractive in general.Hell, according to Senator DeMint there are two reasons to keep me out of the classroom: I like women, and when I happen to have boyfriends I sleep with them. Excuse me while I pull on my Girl Scout mask and pretend to be completely innocent.
You forgot, Girl Scouts are subversives (they have a long history of this) who allow atheists and lesbians in (see Hans Zeiger); you’ll need to put on an American Heritage Girls mask.
This is sort of just typical right wing political posturing. Basically, they want to turn the typical instinct to react against the bullying of a minority on it’s head and say, “Well, it’s really us the God fearing folks who are being bullied and persecuted”. I’m sure than in SC, Sen. DeMint could go with a hell fire and brimstone approach, but he probably realizes that in terms of national perceptions he has to take a different approach.Also, the whole persecuted minority theme has powerful appeal to fundamentalist Christians. For evangelical types, “persecution” is treated as a sure sign of genuine faith (and indeed it was for early adopters). I suspect that as the followers of Jebus become more and more enamored with political power and wealth they will obsess more and more about being persecuted. It’s simply inconceivable to them that they are the persecutors.
Teehee, I guess that guy would blow a gasket (or something) if he’d ever went into foreign politics and learn that our German foreign minister is openly gay and has recently married his partner.http://www.dw-world.de/dw/arti…Not to mention other openly gay politicians in Germany… And guess what they all got re-elected!
Hmmm. I notice that unmarried *men* who sleep with their girlfriends are missing from his list of unacceptable teachers. I’m sure that’s just an oversight and not, say, the misogynistic topping on his homophobic sundae.
Well, you know that men can’t help their sexual urges (as long as they are focused towards women). We can’t keep the poor babies from employment for something they can’t help, unlike those evil evil gays and evil evil single women.
If this person doesn’t want these kinds of people teaching HIS kids, then he has every right to send them to a private Christian school or home school them. He does not have the right, in his freedom of religion, to suppress other people’s rights at a public school.That being said, I do feel that the Oregon teacher shouldn’t have discussed his personal life with his 4th grade class. Not because he was gay, but because it isn’t his place to talk about relationships/sexuality/his life with the class. That should be something that the parents tell their kids about. I feel this way about all teachers (especially in elementary school), regardless of their marital status/sexual orientation. But, then again, that probably is because I feel that parents should teach their kids about LIFE and teachers should teach them about academia.
Would you be bothered if your child came home and told you that their teacher said they were getting married? That’s talking about their relationship. Most parents wouldn’t bat an eye at that.If a kid asks why a teacher isn’t married, is it better to give an honest answer, or just say ‘Sorry kid, nunyobizness.’?
Yeh, because of this prerogative parents can teach kids all kinds of rubbish, like religion and hatred against gays! Because of this schools are prevented from teaching ethics and we can see the results.
If people don’t like diversity in the staff of public schools, they’re free to send their kids to private schools. Trouble is that they aren’t happy with having to pay taxes for public education plus private school tuition. But they get to deduct contributions to their churches from their taxable income. Do they also get to deduct private school tuition, I can’t remember?
Yes, I would. I send my kid to school to learn things, not to gossip about their teacher’s personal life. If the teacher is going to be taking a leave of absence or is going to have their physical appearance alter greatly (ie what happens when you’re pregnant) and it would be strange to NOT mention it, then a quick “So, I’m going to have a baby and my belly will get big” or “I’m going on a little vacation, so you’ll have a sub for a few weeks” is preferable to me.Like I said, perhaps it’s just because I feel that we should depend less on school to teach our children about life and more on ourselves. School is a place where children go to learn about things like math and science, and I don’t want the teachers there talking to my kid about other things. Let’s look at this from the flip side – it’s okay for this teacher to talk about being gay, so is it also okay for a teacher to answer a question about their personal religious beliefs? Is it alright for them to espouse their political views? Where do we draw the line on what is and is not too much sharing of personal life and view points from a teacher’s perspective?I say don’t bother with any of it – teachers should keep their personal lives to themselves and stick to teaching their subjects. If a child asks a personal question, a simple “That isn’t what we are here to discuss” or “I prefer to not discuss my personal life” should suffice. Also, in this particular instance, the teacher could merely have said “Many people aren’t married for many reasons, but those reasons are something you should discuss with your parents.”I can see why people are getting upset, but I think that we are all knee-jerking a bit too forcefully on the issue of the teacher being gay. If this teacher had chosen to talk to the students about, let’s say, Creationism because a student asked their personal views on the creation of the Universe, would we be feeling the same as we are for this teacher talking about his sexual orientation?
You are free to not like this, but realistically this is the same argument that those people who hate gays are screaming about when they fire a gay teacher. They feel that they are in the right to say that the public schools should teach ethics, THEIR ethics, which say that being a homosexual is sinful.When you begin making decisions like this you run into the problem of “it’s okay if I do it, but not if you do it”. I say, remove the problem altogether. I am a parent. I want to be the only person (aside from my children’s father) making the decision on what to teach them in regards to ethics, morals, religion etc. I don’t want to put that into the hands of public school teachers, because I know that I’m a minority and I know that if things like this were going to be taught in schools then my children would be taught things that I find abhorrent.So I would caution you to be careful when you suggest giving up a freedom (in this case, the freedom to determine your child’s non-academic upbringing) lest you find that you miss it. It sounds all good and fine when you’re the one dictating what EVERYONE should be taught, but it becomes markedly less so when you are being dictated TO instead.
That’s funny, when I applied to volunteer in a public school classroom they didn’t ask if I was gay or if I was sleeping with my boyfriend. They really only seemed to care about a negative TB test and a lack of criminal history. Clearly that school district has it all wrong, and I’m clearly a danger to children because I’m an an unmarried non-virgin.
Plus, if we fire all them, how are they ever going to get married? Nobody wants to marry an unemployed guy.
Not in America. I prepare taxes and tuition for primary and secondary school is not deductible.
It’s news like this that always makes me ashamed of my home state of Oregon. We’re supposed to be a liberal state, damnit! Also, fuck Jim DeMint with a ten foot long spiked dildo
With the single exception that junior grades K through 5th require a deeper trust level to keep the attention of the children focused this is obtained through familiarity contract/touching with the children even happens much more at this level again because it helps establish bonds and focus enabling encouragement from a trusted persona. You beginning teachers are always nicer more understanding and more connected than you would be with any middle or high school teacher unless the student themselves goes outta the way to make it so.Talking about your day is like a synapse of the life of someone. The more people who talk about something like that the more examples you have of what the world is REALLY like vs your individual little slices. I believe reality needs to be taught in schools. Yes math, science, etc etc need important places but so does bill paying, what fees to look out for from banks, money investment, how to plan for life emergencies like your child being born with a chronic disorder. Are we not all tired of seeing most Americans drowning for the first 7-8 years after they leave the home? This is what leaving this kind of life information out of the class room has done. Parents may not even know these things themselves so how can we expect them to pass it on? Boot camp actually has a check writing class for cripes sake, THAT many people join the military and don’t know how to write a check.I say bring the life into the classroom but with the same aloofness as office chatter at the water cooler. Instead of giving out a detention because you couldn’t get a morning BJ from your wife how about the teacher comes in and says “guy, gals it’s been a bad day for me so far today and I just want things to go smoothly please open your books too………….” already you calm the teach down a bit, a fair warning is put out, and the kids get a reminder that life isn’t all peaches, that home life can affect your day, that the kids themselves can make it worse or better depending on their actions. Just from one sentence.
Ethics isn’t taught in a singular subject fashion, you learn about all versions of ethics simultaneously and one of the major things you learn is that one set of ethics wont work for all situations.I for one work on a usually Kantian method for ethics but its certainly doesn’t work in all scenarios. I think ethics should be taught as well as world religions. Geography doesn’t tell me about the people living in a different place than me but a good understanding of understanding itself and of the rules by which a majority of the world lives by would be great tools for survival and progress.
My kids are grown now but I would not have a problem with them being taught by a gay or a lesbian teacher. That is their life style and far be it from me to critize. I am 73 and have known many gay and lesbian people through the years and as far as I am concerned they are far better people than the christian ass hats degrade them