The situation surrounding Sharon Huff, the mother of the 7-year-old who was reprimanded for mentioning that he had two moms, will be considered during a special session by the Lafayette Parish School Board tonight. (Administrators assert that Marcus was reprimanded for being disruptive, not for what he said, and that school documents published by the ACLU do not tell the whole story.)

Speaking to Lafayette’s primary newpaper, The Advertiser, Sharon sounds reasonable and thoughtful.

“We will live our lives like we did before,” Huff said. “I am ready to get back to work and let everybody else deal with what is going on. I’ve said what I had to say.” …

Getting the ACLU involved in her son’s situation was not an easy call, Huff said.

“It took me about 24 hours to research different people on the Internet to find out who I wanted to talk to,” Huff said. “I decided I would call them to give me advice. I wanted to talk to someone who could tell me how to talk to the school without making it a big deal.”

The latter part did not happen as she anticipated, Huff said.

“This is not about a gay rights issue,” she said. “To me this is a child that is told they can’t talk about their family because their family is different.”

The Advertiser also spoke to others who said, “It could have been my kid.”

“One of my first thoughts … was that maybe we should pack up and move to Northampton (Mass.) where my children wouldn’t get in trouble,” [Amy Hackett] said. “I don’t want my children shamed.”

Hackett and her partner have two daughters, ages 15 months and almost 3. The girls were both adopted in Boston, but they decided to raise them here close to her partner’s family.

The FRC, Focus, CWA, AFA, PFOX, and Exodus all appear to have been silent on this so far. The story has been reported widely, with FOXNews.com carrying the AP version and conservative CNSNews.com ignoring it, so they’ve certainly heard about it.

From New Orleans, Times Picayune staff writer James Gill penned an opinion piece calling school admistrators to task for a “ham-fisted approach” and stubbornly delaying an inevitable apology, making the people of Louisiana “look like a bunch of yahoos”.

An apology will be forthcoming because the alternative is an ACLU lawsuit alleging that Marcus’s constitutional rights to free expression and equal protection were violated. No doubt they were, but litigation, and the attendant publicity, is only going to prolong the agony for Marcus and put him beyond the pale in the schoolyard.

Surely it is time his interests were regarded as paramount. The school system should issue a handsome apology, expunge the reprimand from his records and let all this legalistic blather die down. He is 7 years old, for crying out loud. Give him some peace, if it’s not too late.

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