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Afternoon De-LiceThe lousy education of your kids.

Compiled by Geoffrey Andersen
Posted Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2007, at 3:01 AM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Do you really need all this information? If there's any lesson to be learned from Caromer's emphatic contribution, your kid's first experience with vectors isn't likely to be in algebra:

Given the option of all the worrying and crying and washing and shampooing and doctor's calls and school notifications...vs. a little scratching...I'd gladly take the head lice every time!!!

Everything you don't want to know can be found in the Fine Whine Fray. GA … 12:00am PST

Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2006

Mincing words? How else to describe an essay which dissects the case against Mary Cheney and endorses gay parenthood? Respondents to William Saletan's latest Human Nature cover the field on the "Double Mommy Front" of the Culture Wars.

Speaking up for the status quo, nicekitty adopts a stance too inert to call reactionary:

Deep down inside something in my gut says "two mommies is bad for kids." It may not be logical, it may be absolutely wrong. But all of those Southern Baptist preachers, that military brat upbringing, being in the military, and my grandmothers left an imprint that is hard to shake. But unlike those moralists that Saletan is speaking of, I am not so fervent or for that matter so convinced that my gut is right that I am willing to get out there and make life hell for those who believe otherwise.

Tracker takes umbrage at the suggestion fathers are bad for children:

Every kid has the prima facie right to grow up with his mom and dad. [...] Any kid would gladly take his or her own screwed up Dad over someone else's Father of the Year. It matters to children that they come to be who they are through the training of their biological parents. [...]

Conservatives don't want government telling everyone what to do, but when society gets as screwed up as it has, their last resort is to start urging the making of laws and amendments to keep families sound. Simply because traditional families have problems doesn't mean Mary Cheney is right to get a child by sperm donation, or however she got it, and raise that child in her preferred setting. She hasn't got the right to demean the child's father that way, and her child will most likely resent her deeply for it. [...] Mary has demeaned Fatherhood, and the actual father of her child.

From the perspective of a gay man, uh-huhh is bothered by Saletan's flip conclusion that men are bad for kids:

I was astonished that, in his next to last paragraph, he chose to conclude his piece by attacking gay male parents: "You want to protect kids? Here's my proposed constitutional amendment: 'Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union involving at least one woman.'" That, of course, would mean banning only gay male marriages. WTF?

Was Mr. Saletan just being tongue-in-cheek and looking for a clever close? I assume so, since nothing in his piece supports any claim about gay male parents. [...] To the uninitiated, Mr. Saletan blamed gay men for misbehaviors overwhelmingly committed by straight men (e.g., sexual assault by a mother's live-in boyfriend), validated attacks by the most trite and extreme radical feminists on gay male couples, and reinforced ugly stereotypes that the Family Research Council loves to stoke about gay men as pedophiles and incompetent parents. How clever!

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Moira Redmond is a freelance writer and a former Slatester. You can e-mail her at .
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