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"It doesn't matter what family you have. It just matters if you love them or not," Daniel van Amstel said. "And yes, I do love them."Â
A Utah fifth-grader -- whose substitute teacher made national headlines for telling him he should not be thankful to be adopted by his gay dads -- has spoken out publicly for the first time since the antigay rant.
Daniel van Amstel, 11, appeared on CBS This Morning Fridayto recount his perspective on the incident, in which the (now-fired) teacher told him that "homosexuality is a sin" and "two men living together is wrong" one week before Thanksgiving at Deerfield Elementary School in Cedar Hills, Utah.
As a prompt, the teacher had asked the students what they were thankful for, and Daniel had said he was looking forward to his adoption.
"She first said, 'Why would you be happy to be adopted by them?' And that's when one of the three kids, ones in my class, they stuck up for me and said let's stop," Daniel said on CBS. "But she kept going. And she said, 'Are you going to be gay?'"
"I went red. I didn't like what she said," he added.
The three girls mentioned by Daniel then proceeded to alert the principal, and the teacher was escorted off the school premises -- reportedly still arguing as she was ejected.
When asked by CBS what advice he would give the antigay teacher, Daniel replied, "You should have made better choices in life." Of her firing, he added, "I'm glad she got her lesson taught. It's called karma."
Daniel's dads, Louis and Josh van Amstel, also appeared on CBS. They said they were "disgusted" by the teacher's conduct.
"Our child had been bullied by a superior, by somebody who was brought in from the school in order to teach these children fifth-grade math, fifth-grade, you know, English. That she's not there to teach semantics. She's not there to teach her personal religious views," Josh said.
Daniel had nothing but praise for the parenting skills of his two fathers in the CBS interview. "They discipline me when I do bad things, they help me, they keep me out of trouble, and they give me sometimes what I want," he said.
"It doesn't matter what family you have. It just matters if you love them or not," Daniel said. "And yes, I do love them."
Watch the interview below.
