atrocious parenting
Kevin McCullough’s accusation that “Liberals Make Atrocious Parents” yanked my chain, as does much of the bullshit ladled out at ClownHall. McCullough rails against the “twisted views on family, sex, and parental responsibility” displayed by the Democratic candidates during a debate last week, but his conclusion is nonsensical. The candidates’ answers to Tim Russert’s question about basic sexual orientation information (Clif at Sadly, No! fisked McCullough’s errors regarding the children’s book King & King) were bland and tepid remarks about supplying their children with important information: that same-sex couples exist, and that they do not need to be feared.
In McCullough’s mind, this means that liberals “believe in lack of restraint, defying of limits, and excess” and “wipe away other important elements of behavior like self-control, purity, moderation, and even delayed gratification.” Where “Conservative parents teach disciplined behavior,” liberals “demonstrate negligent or intentional contempt for their children and society.” For the sin of liberals teaching their children basic facts about sexual orientation, McCullough believes—to use his other slanders on liberal parenting—that we teach our children to play with hot pans and act like “hellions” in public places.
McCullough’s argument is little more than the accusation that we liberals are atrocious parents for not raising our children to be homophobic bigots. Teaching our children—not blinding them with dogma—is the primary task of parents’ lives, liberal as well as conservative. McCullough may judge our efforts a failure, but I suspect that posterity will disagree.