Editorial response

 Hi…

About your view of John Rustad’ s October 3 Legislature speech:

I really don’t think you need to be cynical to suggest that Rustad was making the point that if some expressions are not permissible in the Legislature, then they should not be permitted in an elementary school setting either. This is not cynicism; this is stating a truth, albeit a truth that may or may not be universally accepted. Rusted’s point may or may not be valid: true.

What, to me, is more to the point, is that in the rest of your article you seem to suggest that since kids are exposed to far more suggestive and explicit concepts and language outside the school setting (mainly through the Internet)—which is undeniably the case—, then we should not be critical of schools for doing the same, even if in milder doses. This argument seems to be based on the lesser of two evils principle. The principle is certainly fair when we have to choose between two evils, in which case most of us would agree that choosing the lesser one is morally the better choice. But in this case we are hardly faced with two evils. We are faced with the Internet, which by its very nature contains much that is of questionable value; and with schools, which, if they contain questionable matters, they contain them only because teachers and administrators allow this to happen. 

So the two evils principle doesn’t apply in this case. This means, really, that the Internet has little to do with this whole question. What is at the heart of it is whether or not schools should be involved at all with issues such as sexual orientation, with all that that implies. Without taking a position on this issue, I do wonder where parents generally stand.