College students told to rank the best reasons ‘disgusting’ gays shouldn’t get married
The University of Utah has rejected criticism of a quiz given to students which asked them to rank the “best” argument against gay marriage.
The question was included on a test for international students taking a Public Speaking class at the university in Salt Lake City, nearby the HQ of the Mormon Church.
The test asked students to evaluate the best arguments for a number of topics. For example, a question on raising the speed limit including the not-very convincing “I like to drive fast” and “Studies show no significant increase in crash risk with higher speed limits”.
However, one of the questions took some students by surprise, asking for the best reason that “gay marriage should be prohibited”.
It included the answers “Gay marriage has never been allowed”, “Gay marriage is disgusting”, and “Societies should promote traditional marriages as the ideal environment for children”.
Apparently Option 3 was the best one, because apparently sugar-coating your homophobia by suggesting gay people are incapable of being good parents is ‘more convincing’.
After a student tipped off the Salt Lake Tribute, the university backed down.
A spokesperson insisted: “The scenarios in each exercise, which were created years ago by an instructor no longer employed by the university, are intended to help students hone their writing skills, not engage students in a debate about laws or values.”
However, they added that the content “was due for content review.”
The uni confirmed; “Since this specific question in no way furthers the intent of the course, it will be eliminated from the curriculum in the future.”
One student in the class said: “It was so shocking to promote these kind of ideas to us as international students [at] an American institute.”
A school in the UK came under fire last month over a Maths test question that bizarrely stipulated “marriage is between one man and one woman, as God intended when he made humans male and female”.
