Former JU chairman Tilman Kuban triggered violent reactions with his criticism of a daycare letter. The facility had previously announced that it would no longer make Mother’s Day gifts.
The former chairman of the Junge Union, Tilman Kuban, has received severe criticism for a post on Twitter. The Christian Democrat was upset about a letter to parents from a Catholic daycare center in the Hessian district of Marburg-Biedenkopf. In this, the daycare management announced that no Mother’s and Father’s Day gifts would be made in the future. These would exclude a section of society. “A Father’s Day gift without a father in the family is not only worthless, but can also call a child’s identity into question,” says the letter from the day care center.
Kuban, who represents the CDU in the Bundestag, published a photo of the letter and wrote about it: “There are no more limits to the madness… Somehow I think it’s pretty cool when you teach children to just say thank you to their mother for her mega effort Day after day!” In his contribution, the complete address and telephone number of the daycare center were initially visible. After complaints on Twitter, he deleted the original post a few hours later and repeated it with the address field blacked out.
Apparently, his post had already been shared in right-wing conservative and right-wing extremist circles at that point. The original letter can still be found. Even later, Kuban did not make the logo of the day care center unrecognizable. There were more and more comments on Twitter that heavily criticized the CDU politician.
“Tweet for the right-wing populist outrage bubble”
The CDU member of the Bundestag Ruprecht Polenz complained that the address was originally mentioned. “In culture-fighting zeal, @TilmanKuban criticized the daycare center on Twitter and shared its address. Absolute no go,” he wrote on Twitter. Clara Anne Bünger, who sits in the Bundestag for the left, wrote: “As a mother, I find it incredibly irresponsible how Tilman Kuban makes the name, address, telephone number and e-mail address of a daycare center public just to tweet a cheap to fabricate the right-wing populist outrage bubble.”
“Where is your apology for endangering the staff of this facility with your previous post?” user Skypromusic wrote in a comment. And user Stefan Holzhei also criticized the first post: “Where is the apology? You had posted the complete contact address and thus exposed the daycare center to public hatred. That is unworthy of a member of a democratic party.”
Kuban had defended himself to the “Frankfurter Rundschau” in a statement: “In order not to get caught up in a fake, I found out on the spot that it was an original,” Tilman Kuban told FR. Other media also published the letter.
Critical Commentary from the Catholic Church
In terms of content, there was also criticism of Kuban’s Mother’s Day tweet. “Are you aware that there are children who no longer have a mother and what it’s like for them to be involved in this compulsive Mother’s Day craft,” wrote Twitter user Bruja.
There was also a reaction from the Catholic Church. In a comment on the catholic.de portal, editor Felix Neumann wrote: “Kuban must have known that a populist tweet without the slightest attempt to understand the procedure would trigger a right-wing mob against the day-care center. He probably calculated with it. “
After the letter became known, the diocese of Fulda asked for an apology. There was talk of “irritations and misunderstandings”. The day care center and the parents are in dialogue, according to katzen.de. In a second letter, the facility team apologized to the parents. It has been made clear that the daycare center will continue to have a Catholic profile and is committed to the Christian family image.
Commentator Neumann, on the other hand, saw this as pressure on the institution: “The populist tweet was quickly written, which forced the day care center and diocese to apologize for something for which no apology is needed.”
