Let's stand for SC families and against Andre Bauer

I, like many South Carolinians and other Americans, was shocked today to read what Lieutenant Governor (and gubernatorial candidate) Andre Bauer thinks about our lower-income and unemployed fellow citizens. I was not shocked so much as saddened that he holds such opinions. I was amazed, however, that he apparently believes he can articulate his opinions in a public forum and have any political future in our state. If you disagree that people whose children get free or reduced-price lunches at school are like "stray animals" who shouldn't be fed lest they "breed," help me call Bauer's bluff. Help me show him that we will not elect politicians who claim to be Christian but believe in shaming, belittling, and further oppressing the poor and vulnerable rather than helping them and their children succeed.

At a town hall meeting held Friday in Fountain Inn, near Greenville, Lt. Gov. Bauer made the following remarks in reference to families whose children receive free or reduced-price school lunches:

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better."

He also said of the subsidized lunch program, "I can show you a bar graph where free and reduced lunch has the worst test scores in the state of South Carolina. You show me the school that has the highest free and reduced lunch and I'll show you the worst test scores, folks. It's there, period. So how do you fix it? Well you say, ‘Look, if you receive goods or services from the government then you owe something back.'” In the course of arguing that people who receive government services should have to pass drug tests and show they are participating in their children's education by attending parent-teacher conferences and PTA meetings, he complained that there aren't enough "repercussions" for accepting government aid. Hearkening back to the "welfare queen" stereotype promulgated by Republicans in the 1980s, he stated that "they can have more and more kids and the reward is there's more and more money in it for them."

Lt. Gov. Bauer's comparison of lower-income people to "stray animals" should be offensive to every South Carolinian, regardless of political persuasion. "These people" and "they" (as Bauer kept dismissively repeating) are our neighbors. They are fellow human beings. We can certainly discuss ways to provide incentives for people to get off welfare, get jobs, and provide for their own families. We ought to be offering job training and a hand up, not just a handout. But nothing about welfare reform or "compassionate conservatism" justifies comparing people to animals or suggesting that their reproduction be curtailed. Perhaps the publicly pro-life Bauer regrets abortion a bit less when it is performed on poor women? I'm sure he would adamantly deny that charge, but the fact is that when you make it harder for people to raise children and give them what they need, like food and education, you increase the incentives for abortion. (It is also unlikely that taking away students' ability to eat lunch, in the event their parents fail to meet participation requirements, will improve their performance in school.)

Bauer has, in a way, apologized, for what he called in a statement "a badly phrased metaphor." Indeed. But it's not enough for him to apologize for the particular words, or for the way he phrased his comments, or (as so many politicians caught in verbal gaffes have done) for any offense he might have caused. What Bauer said was no mere gaffe. He didn't make a private aside, not knowing a microphone was turned on; the words weren't lifted from a college term paper of long ago. He said them deliberately, publicly, on the campaign trail. And his proposals for welfare reform back up his attitude. For instance, he believes parents of children receiving free or reduced-price lunches should be required to attend PTA meetings. Will he, then, make sure these parents are excused from work while they attend them? Or that they have transportation? Or that they can hire a babysitter? I would be highly surprised if he would agree to these steps, and if I am mistaken, I would love to be corrected on this point. The trouble with most plans to condition aid on good behavior is that they ultimately punish children and other dependents in addition to (or even more than) the adults whose behavior the government hopes to change.

But Lt. Gov. Bauer's metaphor reveals the true motivation behind his support for conditioned aid: not to protect children by encouraging more responsible parenting, but to discourage "them" from reproducing further and thus laying a heavier burden on the state.

Among those demanding a more comprehensive apology from Bauer is state senator and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen. Sen. Sheheen wrote today, "We should share a collective outrage that any child in South Carolina ever has to go to bed hungry. It's not just their problem - it's our problem. We must accept a sense of community responsibility and take action both in our policymaking at the State House and at a local level, working with our churches and civic organizations to stock our food banks and soup kitchens."

He's right. No, government can't deal with the problem of poverty alone. Throwing more money at the problem won't solve everything. But civil society can't do it alone either. We all should take responsibility. We all should show compassion, especially for the most vulnerable in society: children, the disabled, single parents, the poor and elderly, the homeless, the unemployed. We have no right to regard our fellow human beings as mere stray animals, to be sent out into the cold hungry in hopes they won't come back to beg at our doors. "The poor you will always have with you," Jesus said. He also said that how we treat the poor among us is a test of our faithfulness to God: "Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to Me." When a federal court ruled South Carolina could not use public money to produce the "I Believe" license plate, our lieutenant governor presumed to defend the "rights" of Christians and "traditional" Christian values against the attacks of liberal, secular courts. Obviously his Christian values are not my Christian values. They are not the values of most Christians I know, either Republicans or Democrats.

I ask you to stand with me against Andre Bauer and what he has said about our fellow South Carolinians, particularly the 58% of our public school children who might not have enough to eat if it weren't for the subsidized lunch program. Call the Lieutenant Governor's office. Write a letter to your local newspaper. Blog about it. Put it in your Facebook status. Don't let him get away with this. Let Andre Bauer know that he cannot shame our state, insult its people, and misrepresent the Christian faith he professes without serious consequences to his political career. We are a compassionate state, and our people care for each other in times of great need such as this. Lieutenant Governor Bauer does not - and may not - speak for us.

- KPE