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.