Believe it or not, I’m at a loss for words. So I’ll just get right to it: I’m in possession of an audio clip from a recent Board of Education candidate forum in which the candidates respond to a question from an audience member. The audience member, an HCPSS father who is gay, and whose husband and young child were both present, asked why Linfeng Chen and Tudy Adler don’t support his child feeling accepted in school as the child of two dads.
Their responses took my breath away. And not in a Tom Cruise in Top Gun kind of way.
Dr. Chen responded first, saying “society takes an incremental development to getting where we want to be, but you cannot force people accepting everybody’s position. It takes time to get there.”
Ms. Adler responded next, saying “I do want your child to feel safe, and happy, and accepted; I just want you to – I know you do know this already, but there are other parents who are just not comfortable yet, and hopefully we will all get there.”
AYFKM?
These are completely unacceptable responses to the question that was asked. There shouldn’t be a Board of Education member on this entire planet who answers a question about supporting a student of LGBTQ+ parents or guardians by saying “Well, society just isn’t there yet.”
No, Dr. Chen and Ms. Adler. We are there. Now. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed well over a decade ago. Obergefell v. Hodge was decided seven years ago. We have LGBTQ+ members of Congress. We have openly gay and transgender people serving in President Biden’s cabinet. So much progress has been made for the LGBTQ+ community in the United States that at this point, anyone in the year of our Lord 2022 who still believes that LGBTQ+ people, families, topics, art, culture, and activism need to remain hidden away, and that children must be protected from being exposed to it, is demonstrating willful, indefensible bigotry.
By responding to a gay father’s question with such weak sauce, Dr. Chen and Ms. Adler clearly demonstrated that they would rather defend the indefensible than show strong leadership and challenge it. Kinda makes you wonder if their responses were simply projection.
Howard County, let’s step up and stand with LGBTQ+ students and families. Vote for Jacky McCoy. And vote for Dan Newberger, whose response to the question summed it up well: “I don’t even know what to say. There are families in Howard County who would be uncomfortable when they see an interracial family in this county. But you know what? That’s their problem.”