Sixth-grader forced to confront the difficult p3 questions

It's pretty surprising when an AP journalist admits to being sort of freaked out.

But when you manage to shock a sixth-grader, it's clear you've really accomplished something. It's not hard to gross them out, or embarrass them in front of their friends, but this is achievement at a completely different level:

A sixth grader in North Carolina said she was shocked on Wednesday when a candidate for the 6th Congressional Republican nomination told her that same-sex marriage was like “a man marrying a dog.”

Candidates vying to fill a seat that will be vacated by U.S. Rep. Howard Coble (R) met for a forum at Greensboro Montessori School where they were quizzed by students on topics from immigration to gun rights.

Sixth-grader Lana Torres explained that she supported marriage equality, and asked Rockingham County District Attorney Phil Berger Jr. what he would do ensure equal rights for LGBT people.

“Two years ago, the voters of North Carolina overwhelming approved Amendment One, which only recognized traditional marriage, and I was a leader in that effort,” Berger replied, according to the Greensboro News & Record. “I was the spokesperson for traditional marriage in North Carolina, and I am very much in favor of traditional marriage.”

Torres told the paper that she pressed Berger following the conclusion of the forum.

“He talked about a man marrying a dog,” the student recalled. “I found that really offensive, that he would compare gay marriage to something so offensive and outrageous.”

And so sixth-grader Lana Torres was forced, just as we have been forced more than once in the past, to ask the awkward but necessary questions:

Why is it that this is the first place their minds go?

Can you really be this worried about stopping something that you haven't already been thinking about -- a lot?

Gross.