Re: Filtering out Queers is OK

[David Sternlight <david@sternlight.com>]

At 12:48 AM -0700 7/19/96, Mike Duvos wrote:

<Long argument that children should be exposed to every idea, omitted>

This is simply incorrect. It is a supportable advocacy for most adults, but
children's minds tend to be like sponges--everything they take in (up until
a certain age) is thought to be true, interesting, worth experimenting
with, based on authority, etc. Read Piaget.

What is more, a parent can't watch them every second while they're on the
net, nor will they ask all the questions they should about certain material
they see. I'd no more permit young kids to view gay or bestial or porno
sites on the net than I'd let them view propaganda for how good pigs taste
(unsupervised), if I were an orthodox Jew.

When they've passed the developmental stage (I rely on the experts in this
field for that determination) where they have independent critical
judgement and the security to exercise it, THEN I would open up their
horizons.

I speak as a father who has raised four children who turned out to be
independent beings to successful adulthood and families of their own, not
as a theoretician.

David