Homosexual activists, GOProud attack Jim DeMint: "Trying His Best to Make Alvin Greene Look Sane"

On Friday, United States Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) told a crowd in South Carolina that he supports barring openly gay teachers, as well as sexually active unmarried female teachers, from the school system. “Jim DeMint’s comments can only be described as outrageous and bizarre. The idea that someone who says they believe in limited government would support the government weeding out gay teachers and unmarried sexually active female teachers simply defies logic,” said Christopher R. Barron, Chairman of the GOProud Board. “Jim DeMint is doing his best to make Alvin Greene look sane.”

“A real limited government conservative would be talking about getting the government less involved in education – not more involved. Instead of talking about shutting down the Department of Education, supporting school choice and protecting parents’ rights to homeschool their children, Jim DeMint instead wants the government even more involved in our education system, and involved in a way that would invade the personal lives of every teacher in this country,” continued Barron.

DeMint’s comments come on the heels of increased media attention to the problem of bullying of gay teenagers and the tragically high rates of gay teen suicide. “At a time when we need to be having a serious discussion about the silent epidemic of gay teen suicide, Jim DeMint’s comments send a powerful and disturbing message to people all across the country,” said Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud. “For a man who speaks a great deal about morality, Jim DeMint’s comments represent some of this most morally reprehensible comments made by a politician in modern history.”

“It is clear that the socially conservative big government wing of the Republican Party is desperate to undermine and co-op the message and enthusiasm of the tea party movement. After a year and a half of attacking the tea party movement for not being focused on their pet issues, it is clear that Tony Perkins and his crowd have embraced a new strategy – if you can’t beat’em, join’em. The tea party movement is about limiting the size and scope of the government and empowering indiviudals. The grassroots tea party activists should reject attempts by Washington Republicans like Jim DeMint to corrupt the movement’s conservative message,” concluded LaSalvia.

That is certainly true. My point only is that I think the over-the-top attacks on those conservatives who don’t agree about this issue may be out of line — of course I feel that way about a lot of how we argue things; it bothers me that we can’t actually discuss an issue so much as having each side call each other names.

But it also points out to a lot of people who don’t know it (I certainly didn’t before DeMint’s statement) that a state actually tried this decades ago, and failed, partly because of bipartisan opposition across the political spectrum.

And I guess while the gay political agenda is more obvious these days, the acceptance of gays is much higher today than in 1978. So in my opinion, if you couldn’t pass a law like this in 1978, your chances of doing this today are nil.

I don’t think that negates expressing the desire for it to be so, just the practical implications of that desire.

I think if you want your children raised in such an environment, you will have to find a private school that holds to your philosophy (that’s the universal “you”, not you personally).

I think that those who strongly push ideas like this should recognize a political reality. Look at how most of us here find Phelps and his “Westboro Baptist” church pronouncements repulsive. Well, for a vast majority of the country, a push to ban gay teachers from public schools would be viewed in that same manner. The message may not be the same, but it will be perceived as the same.

We can win on practical matters such as gay marriage, because marriage stands on it’s own, and opposition to gay marriage is based on logic and common sense, not on any revulsion against gays or a desire to discriminate against a lifestyle we find repugnant.

If you go much beyond that, you will lose the majority support, because most people do not want to discriminate against people they find offensive, so long as their offensiveness is kept out of the public square. Smoking is bad, but most people don’t care if someone smokes so long as they do it in private, and wouldn’t push to ban smokers from teaching, even though we don’t want kids to smoke.

Still, I am more disturbed by the support some conservatives give to the idea that we should ban single mothers from teaching, while allowing them to keep their jobs if they quietly abort their children.

Which is an important distinction. I may well wish that teachers were of good moral character, without looking for a law to enforce my idea of morality.

I certainly wish teachers would keep quiet about their sexuality, and I’d rather women and men only have sex when married, so children have a biological mother and father. But that doesn’t mean I would support firing a teacher if she got pregnant ou of wedlock, or had decided to live with a man without getting married. Bad choices, but not something I’d want a law about.

Yes, sometimes discrimination is good. It’s unfortunate that there isn’t another word that means the same thing with less negative baggage. I would support requiring teachers to remain silent about their personal lives, at least elementary school teachers. They are there to teach kids subjects using curricula provided by the school system, not to talk about their own private lives.

I don’t remember knowing anything about my teachers from when I was in school, and I wouldn’t have wanted to know.

By high school, I think the kids are at least to the point where they are going to figure things out in any case.

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