No to Amendment 2 can Make Children Gay

John Stemberger, an Orlando attorney who brings shame to his own profession, and one of the organizers of the Yes2Marriage.org campaign, a rabid right-wing organization undoubtedly, is now making this outlandish link between rejecting Amendment 2 and children being forced to read books "promoting" a gay "lifestyle."

Yesterday Stemberger appeared at a press conference with a Massachusetts couple, Robb and Robin Wirthlin, to promote the amendment. The Wirthlins claimed that by virtue of their son's second-grade teacher reading from a book, King and King, in which a prince falls in love with and marries another prince after turning down a series of princesses, the school was attempting to indoctrinate their son to accept an "immoral lifestyle." The couple filed a suit in the US Supreme Court, claiming that the school undermined their parental rights to raise their children as they see fit, and in so doing, also jeopardized their civil rights. The court, much to its credit, refused to listen to the case.

First, any attempt to draw a black of list of books and burn books is abhorrent. Such advocacy simply is backward looking, anti-democratic, and clearly an infringement upon free speech. Yes, parents like the Wirthlins have the right to control their children's reading habits, but why prevent others from reading such books?

Second, the claim that gay marriage, or domestic partnerships will lead to massive indoctrination of children into the gay "lifestyle" is laughable. Conservatives clearly ascribe too much power to gays! Their whole argument rests on this flawed assumption that homosexuality is nurtured and determined by one's environment. So much of recent scientific studies have cast heavy doubts on that assumption. And of course, conservatives are highly hypocritical--they scream for family values, but when two men or women desire to validate their love for each other, they cast aspersions on it.