Child Abuse

The Nutty Ones don't quite know what to do about the Penn State scandal. They would love to use it against gay people, but Jerry Sandusky is about as straight as you get, a macho, married football coach.

Here's one approach to it, a recent blog post by the Eagle Forum's Roger Schlafly -- the guy who started Conservapedia. He thinks it's terrible to require people to report crimes against children when they witness them, says it goes against our values: "We are not a nation of snitches."

The mandatory reporting law is a direct attack on the autonomy of the American family. Many parents have practices that provoke the disapproval of others. All it takes is one anonymous call to CPS, and a govt social worker will knock on the door and threaten to put the kids in foster care. There is no due process. The upshot is that know-nothing social workers are redefining how American children are to be reared, and this is a change for the worse.

And it is only going to get worse, as the Democrats want to expand the mandatory reporting. Mandated reporting of suspicion

This will get fascinating. You know what he's talking about, don't you? "Spare the rod, spoil the child" is not, you know, politically correct these days, what with the liberals and all acting like there's something wrong with beating your own kid.

Here's what he's talking about. This is a video of Aransas County, Texas, family law Judge William Adams beating his daughter with a belt. Click "Play" only if you have a strong stomach, it is graphic and heartbreaking.



Some of us see the behavior in this video as abuse, and some don't. Some people think this is a normal way to raise a child, beating some sense into them now and then. Personally, I cannot watch it.

When we talk about "child abuse" we usually mean one of two things, in fact it is kind of interesting that we don't strongly differentiate between them. We might mean sexual abuse, which includes any kind of sexual interaction with a child at all, and we might mean violence. And by violence I mean to include confinement and severe restrictions and other harsh forms of punishment.

Sexual abuse has a very narrow gray area. A child might sit on your lap innocently, and in some other instance alarms should sound. I hate it that the world has gotten to the point where you can't give a kid a hug, but there are times when you just can't. In general, there are forms of affectionate behavior that are reseved for adults, children do not understand them, engaging in sexual behavior with a child is never acceptable. The gray area is very small, and I think almost everyone agrees on where the boundaries lie.

Violence against children is actually more controversial. I hope that everyone who watches that video agrees that the father is out of line. This is not child-rearing, it is assault and battery against a helpless victim. But I doubt we would find much agreement about a parent who occasionally throws a kid over their knee and pops them one on the butt. I don't know the percentages, but I think most parents have done that, at least once. I'm not taking a position on it, I'm just saying that a lot of people find a dispassionate and rare spanking acceptable and not abusive.

Raising your voice to a child can be abusive, yelling at them, telling them they're no good or ugly, stupid. This is a kind of violence that you hate to see but there is no law against it.

At some point parents have to be granted the right to make decisions about how to raise their children. You and I don't have to agree with it, you see people all the time saying things to their kids that you would not say, you see parents on the Metro for instance, smacking their kids around and yelling at them, and it is something you have to tolerate up to a point.

And that point falls in a big gray area. I personally think it is outrageous to hit a child in the face, but I see it all the time. There may be no bruises, no broken bones, it does not qualify legally as assault and there is nothing you can do about it, parents have the right. I call it abuse, you might not, the law supports the parent's right to make the judgment.

The Eagle Forum is defending the right of parents to assault their children without interference. They believe that mandatory reporting of child abuse is an attack on "the autonomy of the family."

The logic here is fascinating, it is incredible to see Schlafly actually arguing in support of Jerry Sandusky:

Penn State officials have been charged with a crime for not reporting a similar allegation against Sandusky in 2002. The entire case hinges on the memory and credibility of McQueary, but now he has changed his story and says that he reported it to the police. There is no physical or other hard evidence of abuse. According to Sandusky, the child involved will testify that McQueary is lying about what he claimed to have seen.

Meanwhile, the legal, financial, spiritual, and emotional toll of false accusations is enormous.

It seems that in defending a parent's right to assault their child violently, the Nutty Ones are backed into a corner where they have to defend child molesters from charges of sexual assault, as well. I don't know how many of them really want to go there, but the Eagle Forum has never had trouble finding followers -- leaders of the Citizens for Responsible Whatever, here in Montgomery County, Maryland, have met with the group.

There will be laws against assault and laws against sexual abuse, and those laws should protect the weak from exploitation and mistreatment. The idea that Mike McQueary should have kept his mouth shut when he walked in on an adult raping a child in the shower is absurd. McQueary had the responsibility to stop the abuse and to call in the law to ensure that it didn't happen again.

It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out, how they will manage to defend one form of abuse and not another.