Over the past few weeks, I have become a fan of the online news show “The Young Turks.” I usually agree with host Cenk Uygur on most things, and I highly appreciate his thoughtful yet unapologetic approach to sharing the news of the day, whether it be politics or pop culture.

However, I did disagree with their “verdict”/take on a story they reported on recently. It was about a teacher at Horace Mann Elementary School in Washington D.C.  who may be disciplined for announcing to her first-grade class that she was getting married.

Wait, where’s the problem there? That’s a pretty usual, common thing. Oh, did I forget to mention that she was marrying a woman? Apparently one of the kids in the class went home and told her parents, who freaked. The complained to the principle over their child’s “loss of innocence,” then went on to share their story with PFOX. Remember them? PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays) is an organization that I’ve written about before which claims to be a support system to the ex-gay community. (As if such a thing truly existed.)

The parents’ complaints didn’t end with the wedding announcement, though. The teacher also apparently had the gall to ask the children if they had any questions about what she said, and then she read the students a book called “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” about two gay hamsters. And this is what stole a child’s innocence?

In a blog written by the girl’s mother, Margaret C. Hemenway, on PFOX’s website, she manages to begin by calling back up the “controversy” over “Obama’s friend, William Ayers, better known for being unapologetic about his past terrorist deeds,” by saying that Ayers endorsed a book called “Queering Elementary Education” which would, in Ayers’ words, “demand that we confront our prejudices inculcated through decades of heterosocialization." Oh , how scandalous.

She also said:

 Most parents would not consider a Q&A session with first-graders about  homosexual marriage as an "age-appropriate" discussion.

Yet, she obviously didn’t think before she spoke, because it was the children asking the questions. Therefore, any question asked would be age appropriate. And the only way you could believe that the teacher was giving them explicit sexual information was if you believed that LGBT people are sex-crazed, irresponsible, pedophiles; which this teacher obviously is not. The mother goes on to say…

 The first-grade teacher was asked by one child whether she and her girlfriend  could have children; another asked why they couldn’t just be friends.

Do either of those sound like sexually explicit, non-age-appropriate questions? No. But she’s just not letting this go. Her homophobia runs deep. 

 After the Rutherford Institute contacted the principal to explain the Establishment  Clause and the principle of neutrality, she was forced to reverse her position. Does  this Ivy-League-educated principal know that a likely sentence under sharia law  for homosexuals caught by Islamic religious authorities is death?- usually by a  barbaric punishment of beheading or stoning?

 Homosexuality is condemned as a sin by every major religion in the world today-  should my first-grader also be exposed to other sexual sins in first grade, adultery  and pornography?

She is going way too far with this. But, she’s not done. She also points out that marriage between same-sex couples is not yet legal in D.C. (The blog was written December 14th. The D.C. Council voted to approve a marriage equality bill the next day.)

 Should teachers be allowed to advocate for other types of illegal activity in the  classrooms in D.C.-- perhaps legalizing marijuana?

So now the teacher wants her students to smoke pot? What?
 

 Some of my liberal friends were outraged that the "evil tobacco lobby" used a  cartoon character, Joe Camel, to promote smoking among our youth, since  smoking is bad for your health. Using cartoon guinea pigs to promote gay  marriage should be equally condemned-- since homosexuality is fundamentally  unhealthy. Consider how many gays continue to die in DC from AIDS, a  contagious and preventable disease.

First of all, being LGBT is not unhealthy. There’s no way it causes lung cancer. And can we please start teaching people that gay people do not automatically have AIDS?!

She wraps up her blog by claiming that the reason that the American education system is so bad is because we’re wasting time with “politically correct indoctrination” instead of “striv[ing] for academic excellence.” Please. What bullshit.

Now that you’ve got a clear picture of the situation, let’s get back to The Young Turks. Cenk and his segment co-host Ana Kasparian (and I) agreed that the parents’ shouldn’t have flipped out just because their child’s teacher is a lesbian, but they went on to say that they agreed that the teacher should be reprimanded in some way for reading the book. Their reasoning was that since marriage equality is such a “political agenda” that it is inappropriate for a teacher, especially a grade school teacher, to be expressing a political viewpoint to their students. They also said that if that teacher was allowed to read a gay-friendly book to students, that that would allow another teacher to express their opposing political view by reading a homophobic book to their class.

My disagreement with this line of thinking is two-fold. First of all, marriage equality is so much more than a political issue. Labeling it as such takes away from the heart of what equality really means. While equal rights will be recognized through the judicial/political process, the every day lives and liberties of LGBT Americans are not political pawns. These are civil rights issues. It’s about love, acceptance, and understanding. It’s about knowing that LGBT people deserve to be treated equally.  I know that Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian agree with that statement, but they were wrong to describe this struggle as just a political issue.

My second, and larger, point of contention is the equal weight they gave to a gay-friendly book advocating acceptance and understanding being read to school children and a homophobic book/article/essay advocating hate and violence being read to school children. That is not the same. If a teacher is allowed to read the first book, that does not mean they should be allowed to read the second. Allowing the second book is not an issue of being fair and balanced. That notion assumes that the gay-friendly book is just as radical and extreme as the homophobic or racist one. It also implies that gay-friendly actions and materials are radical or extreme. Reprimanding a teacher for reading a gay-friendly book to her class does nothing to show that LGBT people and their fight for equal rights aren’t radical. In fact, it just perpetuates the idea that LGBT people having equal, civil rights is something to protest; something kids should be kept away from for as long as possible.

There are people who think that equal rights are radical, but do their views deserve the same weight? Should the teacher’s rights be balanced out by Mrs. Hemenway spouting her homophobia? The Young Turks say yes. I say no.

As I’ve said before, I believe that being against marriage for same-sex couples is equivalent to being against marriage for inter-racial couples. Would a parent complain to the school if a white teacher told their students they were marrying a black person? Would they complain if a teacher read a book featuring an interracial couple? Would a teacher face possible punishment for it? Would anyone suggest that a racist book would be acceptable as well in the same measure? No. The parents would be the ones looked down on if that was the case, not the teacher as it was in this case.

And yet, the school may chose to react in a way that does nothing to move the issue forward. If they punish the teacher, in whatever way, they will only reinforce the notion that equal rights would be a negative thing. What the school should do is congratulate the teacher on her engagement and support her decision to diversify the reading material she shares with her students (some of whom may have gay or lesbian parents.)

People need to get over their homophobia. If more schools realized that teaching kids about the benefits of diversity and acknowledged that LGBT teachers/students/parents deserve to be treated and represented equally, we could really move forward.

I’d like to take this opportunity now to congratulate this teacher* on her engagement and to let her know that if I had a child in her class, I would want them to have access to books that positively represented LGBT people.

I’d also like to say that I feel sorry for this young girl who has to grow up with homophobic parents. I really hope that through her school, friends, and other social involvement as she gets older, that she will learn that being LGBT is not a bad thing. I hope that she will realize that what her mother told her about LGBT people was all wrong. I hope the mother learns that lesson too.

* I looked through about four articles on this, as well as the school’s website, but I couldn’t find the teacher’s name.

~ Samantha