DeMint’s Opponent Responds To Anti-Gay, Anti-Working Women Comments
October 5, 2010 Leave a comment
A backlash is building against GOP Senate incumbent Jim DeMint as one of his ballot qualified opponents is interviewed criticizing DeMints religious test for school teachers.
The October 4 edition of the Spartanburg Herald-Journal ran a lengthy article in response to incumbent Jim DeMint’s widely quoted statements advocating the exclusion of gays and sexually active single women from teaching jobs. These statements were also originally reported by the Herald-Journal.
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http://www.goupstate.com/article/20101005/ARTICLES/10051011/1083/ARTICLES?p=all&tc=pgall
Clements criticizes DeMint on gay teacher issue: Opponent for Senate blasts incumbent for stance on who is fit to teach
By Jason Spencer, jason.spencer@shj.com. Spartanburg Herald-Journal.
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Tom Clements, the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, criticized incumbent Sen. Jim DeMint on Monday for saying gay people and unmarried women who sleep with their boyfriends shouldn’t be allowed to teach.
“If he wants to come up with guidelines for some kind of morality test, I challenge him to produce it,” Clements, 59, said in an interview at the Herald-Journal.
“Lay out how you’re going to screen out people you don’t like. And how far does it go? Does it go beyond gay people, or single women, or single males? Let’s hear how extensive your morality test is going to be applied to people. And I don’t think people in South Carolina would agree that somebody else’s morality test be applied to public school teachers.”
DeMint spoke to several hundred people Friday night at a Greater Freedom Rally at First Baptist North Spartanburg.
He told the crowd that if someone is openly homosexual or if an unmarried woman sleeps with her boyfriend, then that person shouldn’t be allowed in the classroom.
He talked about taking that position in the past, saying, “No one came to my defense. But everyone would come to me and whisper that I shouldn’t back down. They don’t want government purging their rights and their freedom of religion.”
The comments harken back to those he made in his 2004 Senate race. Then, he apologized for “distracting” from the debate — saying hiring policies should be left to local school boards — but not for the actual comments.
Clements took issue with this.
“He’s trying to push his version of religion onto the entire country. And I believe in separation of church and state. And I do believe that gay people should have equal rights,” Clements said. “That’s his belief, but I don’t think he can force that on society as a whole or the public school system.”
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Clements praised the call for military budget cuts put forth by Reps. Ron Paul, R-Texas, and Barney Frank, D-Mass. He called DeMint “a strong supporter of the military-industrial complex which is financially andmorally bankrupting our country.”
He also accused DeMint of “big government corporate elitism,” where rampant privatization of government programs and services benefits only a small number of large corporations: “That’s the big government he likes.”
Clements estimated his campaign had raised about $30,000 as of Sept. 30. That compares with the nearly $3.7 million DeMint had on hand this summer.
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