Catholic School v. The Children

The Boston Pilot, which bills itself as the country's oldest Catholic newspaper, has one doozie of an editorial in its June 4 edition.

In it Michael Pakaluk argues against allowing children of same-sex couples to enroll in Catholic schools. His "reasoning", and I use the word loosely, is thus:

• The inevitability of scandal; meaning that sooner or later a teacher or administrator would deal with the same-sex couple is such a manner as to give implicit approval.

"But this is scandal: that is, leading a “little one” astray in some serious matter by the example you set."

• Parents are rightly given access to a child’s classroom, but

"I could not trust the designs of the same-sex couple...What guarantee would I have that he would not be an advocate for his lifestyle, implicitly if not explicitly? ...I saw this happening in my son’s school. The same-sex couple was interestingly activist in hosting pizza parties, sponsoring tables at fundraisers, and volunteering when parental help was needed."

• Distribution of pornography.

"It seemed a real danger that the boy being raised by the same-sex couple would bring to school something obscene or pornographic, or refer to such things in conversation, as they go along with the same-sex lifestyle, which--as not being related to procreation-- is inherently eroticized and pornographic."

Yes, that's right. This 6-year-old and his parents that shared his child's classroom were going to  indoctrinate his child into the belief that homosexuality is ok and host pizza parties where they handed out porn to the kindergartners. Oh the scandal! That a same-sex couple might want to be involved and supportive of their child's school.

And he doesn't stop there. Just when you think he can't get anymore offensive, he delivers this jewel:

"Someone might wonder where the line should be drawn if children raised by same-sex couples are excluded from parochial schools. What about children raised by divorced, contracepting, or cohabiting couples?

Well--what would be the problem in requiring that if parents wish to enroll their children in a Catholic school, they must agree to abide by basic principles of morality?"

So just just how does a divorced Catholic abide by basic moral principals when they've broken their marriage vows? And how is the school going to tell when a parent is "contracepting" (is that even a word?) By the fact that they don't have a slew of kids enrolled? And porn? Seriously? In his fevered dreams, maybe. As if pornography is restricted to same-sex households.

Oh and his concerns are only for young children. It's okay for children of same-sex parents to enroll in Catholic high schools and "probably" middle schools.  Only when they're not old enough to have absorbed the church doctrine is it a bad idea to "expose" them to the homosexual "lifestyle", but by the time they get to high school and probably middle school they'll have soaked up the church's prejudices enough to be inoculated against teh gays.

You know what? Pakaluk most likely doesn't want to know about this CBS poll:

"The increasing visibility of gay and lesbian Americans appears to have contributed toward more positive perceptions of homosexual relations. Forty-three percent of Americans currently see homosexual relations between consenting adults as "wrong" - a drop of 19 percentage points from a Gallup poll taken in 1978."

Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.