I guess I must have missed something. It would appear that the phenomenon of homosexuality is a 21st century phenomenon. That is, some people must believe that it didn't exist prior to, say, 1990. Two reasons for that come immediately to mind: 1) Don't Ask Don't Tell and 2) the DeMint Factor. In the first instance, am I supposed to believe that gays did not serve in the military in every war the United States took part in beginning with World War I? Am I to believe that gays did not serve in any of those wars: WWII, Korean, Vietnam, etc? Am I supposed to believe that? No one seems to be talking about that and so, I presume, gays in the military must be recent phenomenon. Wow, not sure how I missed that. Must have been something Kinsey overlooked. But more on Kinsey later.
The DeMint Factor is even more remarkable that that's based on his now two infamously idiotic comments: "If someone is openly homosexual, they (sic) shouldn't be teaching in the classroom" and "An unmarried woman who's sleeping with her boyfriend -- she shouldn't be in the classroom." Now DeMint isn't much younger than I am having been born in 1951. As I look back on my high school days, I realize that a number of my high school teachers were, well, gay. We didn't call them gay in those days since "gay" had a completely different meaning. We called them "effeminate." I grew up in Indiana and DeMint grew up in South Carolina. I'm certain Indiana did not have a monopoly on "effeminate" public school teachers so I have to presume that when DeMint went to high school (in if not elementary and junior high school) at least some of his teachers were probably gay. This begs the question: What impact did those gay teachers have on his upbringing? Did they somehow negatively affect the way DeMint thinks? I imagine not since if they did have an impact he wouldn't be thinking the way he thinks. If we can set aside the sexist comment about unmarried women sleeping with their boyfriends (this comment clearly puts those women somewhere in between the DeMint Factor and the McDonnell Factor) we need to address DeMint's position on homosexuality in the classroom.
DeMint's position on homosexuality is this: "We need the folks that are teaching in schools to represent our values." Of course, that begs the question: What are his/their values? That never actually gets defined since "values" are not necessarily political. But let's try to deconstruct DeMint's position logically since he doesn't seem interested in doing that himself. DeMint was born in 1951. He attended Christ Church Episcopal School, Wade Hampton High School, the University of Tennessee and Clemson University. Now I can't speak for Christ Church Episcopal School or Wade Hampton, but when DeMint first attended the University of Tennessee it would have been 1969. Assuming DeMint graduated in four years, 1973. A couple of years for an MBA at Clemson, 1975. So, at the height of the sexual revolution in the United States, Jim DeMint was attending major public universities in this country. Now one has to assume that during those years he was studying at public institutions like Tennessee and Clemson he must have been taught by someone who was gay. The exact figures vary. Some contend that only 1-2% of the population is gay; others, 10%. The exact figure is irrelevant. One can assume that at one point in his life, DeMint was taught by someone who was homosexual. Kinsey's study claimed that 10% of American males "admitted to having been predominantly homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55." So, that brings us back to his initial comment about "values." Are we to assume that DeMint's values are predicated on having been taught only by heterosexuals? Obviously, that's not the case. So, somewhere in the long line of teachers who taught DeMint he has to acknowledge that at least one of them was homosexual and also instrumental in the person he is today. Was DeMint one of the 10% that Kinsey was talking about? Guess he should be straight with us about that.
What's equally curious is DeMint's stand on unwed mothers who teach. According to Wikipedia, DeMint's parents divorced when he was five. His mother taught dance. Now unless I'm mistaken that would make DeMint's mother an unwed mother who taught. Presumably, DeMint must believe that every unwed mother who teaches is also lascivious. We can overlook the apparent misogynistic gaffe that all unwed fathers who teach are not lascivious, but based on DeMint's own logic, well, his mother would not be acceptable to DeMint as a teacher since she was unwed and one cannot know for a fact whether she had intimate relations with a man subsequent to her divorce or not and since DeMint homogenizes "all" unwed mothers who teach as lascivious, then, well, that would have included his mother. Clearly, DeMint wasn't thinking logically nor was he thinking historically nor was he actually thinking when he made the statement. It would seem to me that before DeMint actually made a statement like that he would have thought back on his childhood and the situation he found himself in at the age of five when his parents divorced and, presumably, the only option his mother had to help her family survive financially was to teach. Seems like DeMint would have thought about that, but then again Jim DeMint doesn't really have to think about that.