Condoning bigotry

The 2012 Alberta Provincial Election is something I routinely discuss with my students.

I was reading a blog post that was written by Wildrose candidate Allen Hunsperger that featured his views on gay people that included:

-“accepting people the way they are is cruel and not loving.”

-Hunsperger used Lady Gaga's song Born this Way to preface his point that gay people can choose “to not live the way they were born.” He went on to write, “You can live the way you were born, and if you die the way you were born, then you will suffer the rest of eternity in the lake of fire, hell, a place of eternal suffering."

-Hunspurger went on to label public education as “godless,” meaning “profane or wicked.”

Afterward the leader of the Wildrose Danielle Smith refused to condemn Hunsberger's post and reiterated that her party won’t legislate on contentious moral issues. You can read about all this here.

How the hell am I going to explain this to my students?

Can you imagine if a teacher witnessed one student bullying another for their sexual orientation and the teacher opted out of doing anything because they didn't believe in taking a stand on contentious moral issues?

Allan Hunspurger is a bigot. Danielle Smith is a coward and Albertans should be ashamed of both and leave them where they belong -- in the past.

If this is how our potential elected officials model citizenry, what affect will this have on our children?

Bravo to Glenn Taylor and the Alberta Party for challenging Danielle Smith and the Wildrose to withdraw Allan Hunspurger as a candidate for the upcoming election.