Questions and Answers

Since Halloween is fast approaching, it seems appropriate to write about something scary. And for scary, little can compare to the Indiana Family Institute’s candidate questionnaire.

It was bad enough looking at the Right to Life questions and Pence and Mourdock’s answers. Both would outlaw abortion with an exception ONLY for the life of the mother. Both support “personhood” legislation that would outlaw most birth control methods.

I thought Right to Life’s questions were scary, but the Indiana Family Institute–which has long supported Pence and which supports him for Governor–has a questionnaire that lays bare a truly terrifying agenda.

Let’s look at their positions on education–if you could still call it “education” after adopting those positions. They want educational choice–defined as “vouchers to send children to any public, private, religious or home school.” (Just ignore that pesky constitution!) They want parents who choose to home school to do so without any new regulations. They want to “redefine” bullying, in order to protect “students who express opposition to the promotion of homosexuality.” (Wouldn’t want to hurt the feelings of those little gay-tormenters they’re raising!) And they want “Academic liberty” for teachers who want to “discuss the problems and weaknesses of evolutionary theory.” (i.e., they want their version of religion taught in science classes.)

Anti-gay bigotry, unsurprisingly, permeates the questionnaire. There are references to the “homosexual agenda.” They want candidates to agree to “standardize” business regulations by overturning local ordinances that protect GLBT people against discrimination in education, employment and housing. They want to pass a Constitutional Amendment limiting marriage to heterosexuals. And of course, they want to protect those little schoolyard bullies.

There are also the more general “morality” issues they want to dictate. They want to prohibit casinos, discontinue state support of the Kinsey Institute (evidently, studying sex is just as immoral as engaging in it) and require dancers in strip clubs to remain 6 feet away from customers at all times.

There’s more, but you get the idea. And next week, there’s a very high probability that we will elect a governor who endorses all of these retrograde positions, and has supported them throughout his entire career in public life. Mike Pence–a governor for the 15th Century!

Now that’s scary!