Advice: What to Do If the Sandusky Scandal Comes to Thanksgiving

Q: I was having dinner with some friends last weekend,
and of course the subject of the Penn State scandal came up. One of the
straight guests was on a rant about it, and said, "This is a perfect
example of why gays shouldn't be parents.” I was so angry I was afraid to say
more than just "that's crap!" The group changed the subject immediately
— but I feel as though I missed a chance to teach this ignoramus a thing or
two. Is there an appropriate way to talk about issues like these without losing
my temper? 

A: Given the
explosive nature of this topic, congratulations for limiting your outburst to
“that’s crap!”  I, too, would have
been hard-pressed to restrain myself. But as you can imagine, I’m a proponent
of civility, not only as a value, but also as an effective tool to persuade
others to your point of view. (That being said, if a rant or a chokehold is
due, it’s against Jerry Sandusky, the alleged child molester, and the Penn
State officials who abrogated both their legal and moral responsibilities.)

Had you gone further, i.e., let it all out with some form of
“Jane, you ignorant slut”  or some
other verbal humiliation, you likely would have lost any moral high ground. In
this case, you have the truth on your side, so the most effective strategy
would be to stay on that high ground and use the facts  to unmask the blatant mistruth of this
guest’s position.

A cool-headed response might have been more like: “It’s
actually not an example of that at all. An overwhelming body of evidence
supports the fact that gay people make very good parents, and their children
thrive. It is, however, a good example of why pedophiles should be kept away from children — as if we needed
to know that.”

Or I might have reacted: “It’s very disturbing  to hear someone as intelligent as you
confuse pedophilia (a psychiatric disorder in adults usually
characterized by sexual interest in children) and homosexuality (the romantic
or sexual attraction between members of the same sex or gender), a clear
distinction made by every accredited psychiatric association. The alleged charges
of child molestation brought against  Sandusky have, in fact, nothing to do with sexual orientation
or to the suitability of gays and lesbians to parent.”

To this last point, Kenny Levine, LCSW, a gay clinical
social worker in Durham, N.C., explained to me: "Every major mainstream
child welfare organization in the country has affirmed that children raised by
same-sex couples are as happy and well-adjusted as other children. This is the
consensus of organizations as diverse as the American Psychological
Association, the Child Welfare League of America, and the American Bar
Association.”  As I said, the facts
are on our side.

There’s a long history of gay people being portrayed as a
threat to children, going back at least to 1977 when Anita Bryant ran a
successful campaign to repeal a Florida ordinance prohibiting anti-gay discrimination.
Her organization, “Save Our Children,” repeatedly warned parents that “a
particularly deviant-minded [gay] teacher could sexually molest children.” In
more recent years, this same fallacious argument has been made in efforts to
exclude gay scouts and scoutmasters from the Boy Scouts of America.

All of this would have been “appropriate” to discuss at the
table, and I would have then turned to the question of how and why this alleged
molester was able to continue to prey on vulnerable kids for so many years.

OK, you missed this opportunity in the moment, but that
doesn’t mean all is lost. I’d suggest contacting your host and asking for the
email address of that straight guest, if not all of the guests, and send out a
thoughtful, well-reasoned — and, yes, civil — note, making these points in
detail.  Why send it to everyone,
you ask? You don’t want anyone to have left the table thinking there’s an iota
of truth that the alleged acts of a child molester have anything to do with gay
and lesbian parenting.

YOUR TURN: How have you handled ignorant comments made
during social gatherings? Please share in the comments below. 

Steven Petrow is the author of  Steven
Petrow’s Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners and can be
found online at  www.gaymanners.com.
Got a question? Email him at  ask@gaymanners.com
or contact him on Facebook
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