One word: FAIL
Silly season is alive and well and taking over.
Yet another group of legislators has decided it knows better than Mother Nature, and is attempting to pass a law to make people ignore what happens every day. No, I'm not talking about North Carolina's bill that would literally outlaw rising tides. (Who would they arrest for a violation?) In this case, it's Tennessee's attempt to ban any and all discussion of what they've termed "gateway sexual activity". What's that? Let's see...oral sex, touching of genitalia, thigh-grazing, hand-holding, kissing...
...wait a sec. Hand-holding? Kissing?
Yep. They're now against the law in Tennessee. At least for teens. And those behaviors can't even be discussed in a sex-ed class...that's also now illegal.
It never fails to amaze me that there seems to be a group of people who truly and honestly believe that with the stroke of a pen, they can bring natural processes to a skidding halt. Noted Conservative commentator William F. Buckley once described a Conservative as "one who stands athwart the tide of history, yelling 'Stop!'." The latest round of so-called Conservative legislation appears to be attempting to one-up that observation, by erasing not only scientific advances in meteorological forecasting (in the case of North Carolina), but even the pretense of logic and common sense.
Applying a few search terms to a popular Internet search engine or two and reading through some results, it can be determined that teen-pregnancy rates have dropped significantly since 1988. Incidences of STDs and HIV infections are dropping as well. Are kids ignoring peer and hormonal pressures now? Not likely. I find it more logical and reasonable that, because they have access to information, they're making smarter choices about their behaviors. If the Tennessee law stands, will that force those rates to drop even lower? Here's a name I can offer in response to that question: Bristol Palin. Anecdotal, to be sure, but a very high-visibility anecdote, considering how her infamous mother touted the effectiveness of abstinence-only practices.
Laws to either literally or figuratively hold back the tide are doomed to fail. Passing such laws does nothing but weaken the entire structure of both law and government. (Thank you, Robert Heinlein, for pointing that out to me many years ago.) To me, it makes absolutely no sense for any legislative body to even give serious consideration to such legislation, especially when there are matters of much higher urgency to examine. Unless, of course, the situation is as postulated by certain Liberal commentators, and those legislative bodies are considering this sort of legislation specifically to avoid examining those matters of higher urgency.
People used to call California the home of all the nut-cases in the United States. Now that I live here, and I'm looking at what's going on elsewhere in the country, I begin to think that perhaps that concept is exactly backwards, and California may in fact be the last bastion of sanity in America.
That's enough for one morning.
*poof*
Yet another group of legislators has decided it knows better than Mother Nature, and is attempting to pass a law to make people ignore what happens every day. No, I'm not talking about North Carolina's bill that would literally outlaw rising tides. (Who would they arrest for a violation?) In this case, it's Tennessee's attempt to ban any and all discussion of what they've termed "gateway sexual activity". What's that? Let's see...oral sex, touching of genitalia, thigh-grazing, hand-holding, kissing...
...wait a sec. Hand-holding? Kissing?
Yep. They're now against the law in Tennessee. At least for teens. And those behaviors can't even be discussed in a sex-ed class...that's also now illegal.
It never fails to amaze me that there seems to be a group of people who truly and honestly believe that with the stroke of a pen, they can bring natural processes to a skidding halt. Noted Conservative commentator William F. Buckley once described a Conservative as "one who stands athwart the tide of history, yelling 'Stop!'." The latest round of so-called Conservative legislation appears to be attempting to one-up that observation, by erasing not only scientific advances in meteorological forecasting (in the case of North Carolina), but even the pretense of logic and common sense.
Applying a few search terms to a popular Internet search engine or two and reading through some results, it can be determined that teen-pregnancy rates have dropped significantly since 1988. Incidences of STDs and HIV infections are dropping as well. Are kids ignoring peer and hormonal pressures now? Not likely. I find it more logical and reasonable that, because they have access to information, they're making smarter choices about their behaviors. If the Tennessee law stands, will that force those rates to drop even lower? Here's a name I can offer in response to that question: Bristol Palin. Anecdotal, to be sure, but a very high-visibility anecdote, considering how her infamous mother touted the effectiveness of abstinence-only practices.
Laws to either literally or figuratively hold back the tide are doomed to fail. Passing such laws does nothing but weaken the entire structure of both law and government. (Thank you, Robert Heinlein, for pointing that out to me many years ago.) To me, it makes absolutely no sense for any legislative body to even give serious consideration to such legislation, especially when there are matters of much higher urgency to examine. Unless, of course, the situation is as postulated by certain Liberal commentators, and those legislative bodies are considering this sort of legislation specifically to avoid examining those matters of higher urgency.
People used to call California the home of all the nut-cases in the United States. Now that I live here, and I'm looking at what's going on elsewhere in the country, I begin to think that perhaps that concept is exactly backwards, and California may in fact be the last bastion of sanity in America.
That's enough for one morning.
*poof*