The former chairman of the Junge Union, Tilman Kuban, triggered a wave of hatred against a daycare center in Hesse this week. In a tweet, he criticized the decision of the daycare team to refrain from handicrafts for Mother's and Father's Day this year in order to exemplify diversity.
Kuban published a letter to parents in which the daycare center informed about this decision. The letter had been circulating on social networks for a while. The CDU politician initially shared it in such a way that the contact details of the daycare center were also visible. Extreme right-wing media apparently continued to disseminate them. It was only after a few hours that Kuban deleted the tweet, "for the protection of the children and the facility."
Asking how far the commitment to diversity should go is legitimate, especially for a CDU politician who advocates the Christian image of the family. Without parents, a society cannot exist.
It is therefore right and important to discuss questions of motherhood and fatherhood. It is not to pillory the employees of a daycare center for this and thus expose them – willingly or out of negligence – to hatred and possibly even assaults.
If politicians really want to stand up for the cause of mothers, they have the opportunity to do so every day, especially as a member of the Bundestag, as Kuban is – the cynical game with well-known outrage mechanisms on Twitter is not necessary.