Parents of special needs children are waiting for an apology from conservative political figure Ann Coulter for tweeting after Monday night's foreign debate between President Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney.
Her tweet approved of candidate Romney's decision but insulted the president.
She posted:
This is not the first time Coulter has used the "r" word during this election season and has been called out on it by blogger Ellen Seidman.
"At this point, I'm thinking the woman must surely be aware that the word is offensive and she chooses not to care. That's pretty vile and heartless," a mother of a special needs kid shared on the blog "Love that Max."
"You want to slam the president, go ahead. But you can't think of any other word to use? Come on."
The word "retard" insults Max and many others who have intellectual disabilities. Yet, the tweet by Coulter currently has 1,400 favorites and earned 3,378 retweets.
Special Olympics athlete and global messenger John Franklin Stephens wrote an open letter to Coulter, after the debate, expressing his feelings about the comment she posted.
He wrote in the letter, "After I saw your tweet, I realized you just wanted to belittle the President by linking him to people like me. You assumed that people would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an insult and you assume you could get away with it and still appear on TV."
"Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren't dumb and you aren't shallow. So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult?"
Stephens wondered what point the political figure was trying to make as he found her comment to the heart. He even invited her to the special Olympics with hopes that she will stop using the word, which is very offensive to many people.
"Come join us someday at Special Olympics. See if you can walk away with your heart unchanged," he wrote.
