After Penn State: Foster Care and Who Makes a Good Parent?
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Penn State's alleged sex abuse scandal casts a spotlight on the plight of at-risk kids and foster care. We update events at Penn, then look at the foster care system nationwide and current efforts to expand the pool of parents to include gay and lesbian couples, in the face of efforts in many states to prevent same-sex couples from fostering and adopting. Also President Obama hosts the Asian Economic Summit this weekend, and veterans and unemployment."
Banner image: Penn State University head football coach Joe Paterno talks from inside his home to a large group of students who gathered at his house on November 8, 2011 in State College, Pennsylvania. Behind Paterno is his son Scott. Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images
Making News
Obama to Host Asian Economic Summit This Weekend ()
President Obama will be in Hawaii this weekend, hosting an economic summit with Asian leaders. It's the first stop on a nine-day trip to Australia, Indonesia and other countries. Shaun Tandon is in Honolulu for Agence France Presse.
Guests:
- Shaun Tandon: Agence France Presse, @shauntandon
Main Topic
Penn State, Child Sex Abuse and Opportunities for Foster Care ()
Allegations of child sex abuse have destroyed the carefully cultivated image of Penn State's football team and brought down the university's administration. They've also exposed once more the vulnerability of children, when a sexual predator can hide behind the façade of an institution bent on protecting its reputation. Foster children were assigned to former coach Jerry Sandusky's care, even though charges against him were investigated for years. Today, Penn State's Board of Trustees expanded its probe into the cover-up. With 500,000 children desperate for loving homes, we look at efforts to widen the pool of available parents. Should gays and lesbians qualify?
A message from Warren Olney about this broadcast of "To The Point" aired on Monday, November 14, 2011 in response to listeners critical of the show.
To the Point: Warren Olney Responds to Listeners Critical of Friday's Show by KCRW
Transcript
Before we end today’s program, I want to apologize for something that happened on Friday’s “To the Point.” We reported that Penn State’s former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was allowed to care for foster children even though authorities knew he was suspected of child abuse.
With hundreds of thousands of troubled children in need, we thought it was a good time to point out that gay and lesbian couples are often prohibited from both fostering and adopting, even though they can provide loving homes.
But we failed to point out explicitly that pedophilia and homosexuality are not connected, and that led some listeners to think we were buying into an infamous falsehood.
Over the weekend, we received a lot of critical comments from people who thought that, by discussing both topics in one show, we had equated the two. We respect our listeners, and we want to respond. There is no connection between pedophilia and homosexuality, and we never intended to say or imply there is. But our failure to make that crucial distinction explicit was a serious oversight. We regret it, and we apologize.
Guests:
- Michael Sanserino: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, @msanserino
- Frank Cervone: Support Center for Child Advocates, @PhillyAdvoKid
- John Ireland: Raise a Child Campaign
- Jerry Cox: Family Council, @FamilyCouncil
- Sari Grant: LA County Department of Children and Family Services
Links:
Reporter's Notebook
After the IED, Post Traumatic Growth ()
On this Veterans' Day, President Obama laid the traditional wreath at the tomb of the unknown solider. Tonight he'll watch a basketball game on an aircraft carrier in San Diego, before taking for the economic summit Honolulu. The President is pushing for American employers to hire Americans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Kimberly Dozier is a former CBS News correspondent who survived a car bomb that killed four others in Baghdad. She's since become a correspondent for the Associated Press, and is the author of Breathing the Fire: Fighting to Survive and Get back to the Fight.
Guests:
- Kimberly Dozier: Associated Press, @KimberlyDozier
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