He shouldn't have to "deflect" anything. Does Anna Griffin ever have to "deflect" when someone asks her about her marital status?

When is honesty stupid? Great lesson to teach the kiddies.

What Steve said.

Silly me I thought measure 9 was not passed...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Ballot…)

@w9thgh...: So, should a straight male teacher NEVER utter the words "wife" or "girlfriend" because that would mean they're discussing their sexuality? Seems like this teacher in Beaverton was just stating a fact, not diving into details about his sexuality. Nice spin, though.

I, for one, am sick and tired of having straight people shove it in our faces. I get it, you're married, you have a girlfriend, you don't have to pretend you come home to an empty house. Keep it to yourself and stop trying to recruit my kids into your deathstyle! 100% of straight marriages end in divorce or death, and if that's not dangerous, I don't know what is.

You can't say whatever you want to at work. Welcome to adulthood.

Hey Blabby, let me know when a teacher gets fired for talking about the existence of their opposite-sex spouse or significant other. Asshole.

@w9gM... You must not have young children or are clueless about the lesson plans for the early grades. At least pre-k through 2nd families family units are part of the lesson plan. Yes, the teachers often talk about their own families to help the kids make the connection. Fortunately for our non-traditional family, while our daughters' teachers have been straight they have always been welcoming of our very non-traditonal family. No, I am not bothered by the fact that my youngest daughter's teacher has a photo of her family in the classroom including a picture of her husband.

I might also add that it is not unusual for family members - this includes spouses - to be supporters and volunteers at a school. One teacher's husband has helped me with various projects for evening events. Others have helped with the auction and countless other activities. Teachers are people with families that love and support them.

As for Anna Griffin - How would he have been a good role model of what a gay man can be if nobody ever knew he was gay? She wrote, "He could have spent a school year earning his students' respect, inspiring them to think differently about the world, showing them that it doesn't matter who you love or what anybody thinks as long as you study hard, play fair and don't let the bullies beat you down." Yes, people might have respected him but they would not have known that it does not matter who he loves if he lied. Does she really think that lying is a way to earn students' respect? I think the day she tells her kids that they need to lie and say they have a dad and deny that they have two moms, she can judge Seth Stambaugh. The reality is that she lives in a "safe" neighborhood.

I see Griffin straining to play the clever contrarian and carve out a unique perspective but I've reread this three times and can't find a logical thread. I call bullshit.

If Beaverton's move is indefensible, and it is, you can't also tsk tsk the teacher and pretend you would have had an infinitely more wise way of conducting yourself in the classroom. Griffin just dressed up a pile of bullshit with a silly hat made of bullshit and somehow delivered the shitty creation to the Oregonian for a paycheck.

The purpose of a classroom is to teach 30 kids the curriculum while keeping them from killing each other. It's not to validate the adults in the building. Adults can find validation elsewhere. School isn't about the teachers and their feelings.

It was foolish for this student teacher to take the bait on this question. The results speak for themselves.

pdxmom wins.

The comments that are to the contrary use awful logic.

Hey, I just wanna say good and well-thought points all around; better than the usual name-calling, ignorant drivel you usually see as responses.

Now, my opinion: Why should we expect our gay teachers (and being gay while teaching IS legal) to be so much more clever with pronouns and and other word-play than our straight teachers? Students, especially in high school, are curious about teachers' personal lives. A straight teacher MENTIONING the "existence of a wife or girlfriend" is far from inappropriate; and a gay teacher briefly answering an honest question from a curious student is just as acceptable.

I don't want my 4th grader to learn from her teacher what "gay/others" mean. End of story.

Please don't make this a gay rights issue. Think of small children and their naive minds.

Steely75,
I also don't want my third-grader learning about sex acts in elementary school. That's why I can't believe we have prime-time advertising showing hetero couples giving each other goo-goo eyes while a voice describes the horrors of penile erection problems--that's a fun one to dance around. But this is different. The kid's reaction, "so, you like to hang out with guys," is almost exactly what we talk about when we talk about our gay friends with our kids. And it's true--kids have an innate sense of difference and preference in the grown-up world, and they certainly don't connect it with sexuality. There's no need to spell out the details of the sex act for either orientation. So I don't think you should be concerned that your children will wonder about gay sex any more than they wonder about hetero sex. It's only us adults that can't get the details out of our heads!

What I don't see here is anything concerning how this might affect the kids at the school. I am a step-parent of a child at Sexton Mountain, who's other parents are gay. Is she allowed to talk about her gay parents in school? Won't this cause kids of gay parents to think twice and feel embarrassed and ashamed to talk about their own parents? It will do exactly that to my kid, which is unacceptable. It will also encourage an atmosphere where bullying of my kid is acceptable, because kids will think if firing someone who is gay is acceptable, then bullying a kids whose parents are gay should also probably be acceptable. Kids this age don't understand these kinds of nuances - either something is wrong or it is right. This sends the message that being gay is wrong, which is again unacceptable when you have children of gay parents in the school. Beaverton School district prides itself on a good education for all - except apparently my kid.

I am sick to death of reading or hearing or seeing the nonstop news coverage of the "gay student teacher" who was "fired for being gay" in Beaverton. What a crock! The problem occurs when what looks good in a headline gets introduced to what really happened. "Mr. fairtale...I would like you to meet mr. reality check". The only positive thing that has come out of this is it's given the news media the opportunity to demonstrate to all of us how tolerant and accepting they are and by definition ...if you disagree ...you aren't! Seth knows why they let him go .... It wasn't until he had the opportunity to talk with, and exchange outrages with, his gay friends that he decided all of a sudden that it couldn't have been for anything he did so that left only his sexuality to blame and then we got: "They fired me because I am gayand I told the student the truth" There are at least 2 huge problems with this new version of the truth:

#1 It's a lie! Think about it, it defies common sense to think that the Beaverton School District Principal and Administrators called him in and sat him down and said "Seth...I am sorry ... We are letting you go because you're gay" who in their right mind believes that? Why would the news media think we are that stupid? Even if the real reason is that every Beaverton School teacher harbor intense 'hate" towards all gays.... (yeah right!) No one in their right mind would ever be stupid enough to tell him that. Give me a break!

#2 The second thing that concerns me is this: So far none of the stories I have read (at least 10-12 of them) mention the most important fact in the whole story: that the child he was having this discussion with, was only a 4th grader and only eight or nine years old? Don't you think that's an important part of the story? If the child he was having a conversation with was 18 or 17, then he would have just been guilty of having an inappropriate conversation with a student. Professional educators do not discuss their personal selection criteria for potential sex partners with their students! and Nobody has that conversation with an 8 or 9 year old child ... period! When it comes to a teacher-student relationship.... Teachers are held to the highest possible standard of professional behavior and that standard does not include throwing ashes over your head in front of an 8 yr old student because you can't get married to the guy you are having a homosexual relationship with. It also doesn't allow for a teacher to discuss their private romantic or sexual habits ith an 8 or 9 yr old child either!

How many people who are reading this can truthfully say that their fourth-grade teacher discussed their personal sex life, or their choice of sexual partners, or any part of their private lives with you when you were in fourth grade? It's not a conversation you would ever have. Anybody, including student teachers from Lewis and Clark College should be bright enough to know the difference between what is appropriate and what is not. Every single headline stated something to the effect that a "student teacher was fired because he was gay" and that is such a lie. If the student teacher had been straight and had a conversation with an 8 or nine-year-old regarding his preference for really fat girls with blond hair and big breasts that would be equally inappropriate... at least.

Why is it that gay people feel the need to tell everybody all of the details of their private lives even when it's professionally frowned upon to do it? Can't gays put their victim status on the shelf long enough to do their jobs without feeling the need to call someone a 'bigot' or a 'hater' Why does everything bad that happens to a homosexual, happen only because he is a homosexual? Where is the teachable moment for Seth when everyone aound him is telling him HE is the victim of his own stupidity. Hopefully someone has taken him aside and reinforced the reasons he was originally let go ...because that reason hasn't changed ...and as crazy as it sounds he appears to believe that what he did was totally appropiate...it wasn't. I hope this doesn't take all of the wind out of your outrage and foot stomping, but if you aren't dumber than soap ...then you already know that he wasn't fired because he was gay. He was fired because he was stupid! And stupidity is not a civil right either, especially when you are a teacher, and your stupidity manifests itself in the form of inappropriate conversations, regarding your private sexual preferences with children that aren't yours and that two men can never have.