Democratic debate brings up a parenting hot button
Posted
September 27, 2007 at
1:07 pm by
Jessica
Okay, so I watched much of the Democratic debate last night. Not much to report unfortunately, besides Mike Gravel being bat-shit crazy, that was kinda entertaining. Nothing blew me away though, but I thought it was very interesting that when a reporter asked Edwards, Obama and Clinton about whether or not bringing gay awareness into the 2nd grade curriculum by reading a book about two princes getting married was appropriate, even the most liberal of the candidates kinda squirmed. Barack Obama managed to dodge the question with his masterful way of answering a question without really answering it with some mumbo jumbo about “fear”. John Edwards was open to it but then grappled with the idea of second graders being read the book in question when he responded, “Did you say second grade? Second grade might be a little tough.”
Hillary Clinton responded the most conservatively when she said that whether or not a child is read a book about gay couples should be left up to the discretion of the parents. Even though Mitt Romney has come out accusing the Democrats of being out of touch and supporting such controversial subject matters that defy “family values” by way of government mandate of gay subject matters into the curriculum — it isn’t entirely an honest or true attack. Republicans like to use this as a divisive issue, but from what I heard last night, I wonder how divisive it is. Could this be a non-partisan issue? Could it be that I actually agree with Hillary on something? (By the way, I’ll expect the same moral outrage directed at her that was thrown in my direction, right?)
Anyway, the way I see it, Hilary Clinton is the most moderate, followed by Barack Obama and John Edwards being the quintessential flaming liberal. I was impressed that Barack Obama said he wouldn’t take nuclear power off the table while Edwards said no way, that it was too dangerous.
Anybody else watch? It’s the first one I’ve watched because frankly, I’m getting Election 2008 overload and the election is still more than a year off! Although as long as Gravel is still in it, it’s more entertaining than anything else on prime time…
[youtube]L3gQfz8GC0o[/youtube]
Tags: Barack-Obama, democratic-debate, democrats, hillary-clinton, john-edwards, msnbc, News-&-Politics, tim-russert |
4 Responses to “Democratic debate brings up a parenting hot button”
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately in an effort to remove commercial messages, irrelevancies, excessive foul language, racist/sexist/hateful comments, spoofed/cloaked IPs and/or personal attacks and will be edited/deleted at our discretion. Thank you for your patience.
1. Rita said:
September 27, 2007 @ 5:08 pm
I don’t remember any moral outrage directed at you for your stance. Just complete disagreement.
Perhaps Senator Clinton was responding without the benefit of the kind of enlightenment those of us on this board could afford her on the topic? I tell you, I just see it the same way I see books about mixed race marriages or family units that differ in some way from the traditional nuclear family. As long as there are kids in the schools who come from these kinds of homes, they shouldn’t be stigmatized as “bad” and refusing to even acknowledge their existance is certainly stigmatizing the family unit as “bad” in some way. That’s just how I still feel about it.
2. Allena said:
September 27, 2007 @ 6:02 pm
(By the way, I’ll expect the same moral outrage directed at her that was thrown in my direction, right?)
COMMENT FISHER!
no, for real, though I agree with rita, doesn’t make much difference to me. my kid doesn’t listent o books being read anyway, ;0 believe me, I tried!
3. Kelly Reising said:
October 13, 2007 @ 8:01 am
I can’t wait for 2008. Seriously. So I will just be upfront and tell you that I am a hardcore Edwards fan. People think he’s too pretty and rich, but so was JFK.
Meeting Elizabeth Edwards at Blogher 07 only cememted my support for their family.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love Hilary. Bill in the White House again sounds pretty freaking fun. But I can’t vote for her.
Obama is suported by Oprah which is super cool, but I can’t vote for him either.
Soooo, Edwards it is for me in 2008.
Man, I like talking politics. I think I am kind of tired of the Beauty/Style thing. Maybe we should revamp my column Prescott?
Mother Magnetism
GOOOOO John Edwards!!!
4. SAHMmy Says said:
October 23, 2007 @ 8:55 am
Congratulations–you got me to read an entire political post; that’s some feat! If you’re looking for personal opinions, here’s my two cents: If such a book were assigned to my child I’d let him read it and not make a big stink. A book is…just a book. Reading a book about gay marriage isn’t going to make a child gay, just as reading Harry Potter isn’t going to make him a wizard.