Indiana legislature – Page 8

Define Benefit

State Senator Luke Kenley is quoted in a news story about the public transportation bill currently before the General Assembly.

“I have a surprisingly large number of constituents who are strongly opposed to this,” says Sen. Kenley (R-Noblesville.) “They just feel like it’s going to be a tax increase on them without any particular benefit.”

There are a number of responses that come to mind: the most obvious is that all the bill requires is an opportunity for the citizens who will be taxed to vote on the matter. Those opposed will have an opportunity to make that opposition known.

That said, the belief that those who wouldn’t use public transportation wouldn’t benefit from its availability is incredibly short-sighted. We all benefit from cleaner air, economic development and improved quality of life–all outcomes associated with the availability of good public transportation systems. The attitude displayed by Kenley’s constituents reminds me of people who don’t want to support good schools, because their own children are grown, despite ample evidence that a good school system adds to property values and an educated workforce is a requirement for economic development.

These are all tangible benefits that even the whiners will enjoy. But we might also wonder whether there isn’t some intangible benefit in creating a community that works for everyone, not just the self-satisfied “makers” with two cars parked in the garage of their suburban home in a gated community.

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Fun with Trans-vaginal Probes….

It was only a momentary diversion, but yesterday the Indiana Senate debated a proposed amendment to the offensive bill requiring (among other things) that poor women wanting prescriptions for abortifacants undergo two trans-vaginal probes.

Here’s the relevant language:

“Before giving, selling, dispensing, administering, prescribing, or otherwise providing an erectile dysfunction drug to a man showing symptoms of erectile dysfunction, a physician licensed under IC 25-22.5 shall do the following:

(1) Examine in person the man showing symptoms of erectile dysfunction.

(2) Conduct a prostate examination or oversee a prostate examination by an individual who is licensed or certified in Indiana and whose scope of practice includes the conducting of a prostate examination.

(3) Document the following information on the patient’s medical records:

(A) The size of the patient’s prostate.

(B) Whether the patient is showing symptoms of benign prostate problems.

(4) Provide the following information to the man diagnosed with erectile dysfunction:

(A) A copy of the final printed drug label.

(B) The name and telephone number for the physician who prescribed the erectile dysfunction medication and information for follow-up care in the event of an adverse event described in section 2 of this chapter.

(c) A physician licensed under IC 25-22.5 who gives, sells, dispenses, administers, prescribes, or otherwise provides an erectile dysfunction drug to a man shall schedule a follow-up appointment with the man at approximately fourteen (14) days after prescribing the erectile dysfunction drug to:

(1) conduct a physical exam, including an electrocardiogram, to ensure that the man is healthy enough for continued sexual activity; and assess the degree to which the erectile dysfunction drug has aided in temporarily relieving the symptoms of erectile dysfunction.

(d) The physician described in subsection (c) shall make a reasonable effort to ensure that the patient returns for the follow-up appointment described in subsection (c), including recording in the patient’s medical records:

(1) the date and time of the follow-up appointment;

(2) a brief description of the efforts the physician and the physician’s staff took to ensure the patient’s return; and the name of the individual who performed the efforts.

There’s more, but you get the idea.

Gee–I wonder why this eminently reasonable amendment, motivated solely by concern for the health of the male patient, was voted down.

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And the Black Helicopters Circle Above….

Just shoot me now.

Indiana has all kinds of real problems. Our education system is pretty much a wasteland. Our per-capita income levels are among the nation’s lowest. College graduates continue to leave the state in droves. Job creation is robust only in the imagination of the Indiana Economic Development agency’s PR flacks.

So what weighty issues occupy our genius legislators? How do they propose to solve these problems?

Well, the measure that would mandate the teaching of cursive has been moving through the process. The House Resolution that would place a ban on same-sex marriage and civil unions in the state constitution is once again a hot topic. Yesterday, the Indiana Senate unanimously passed a bill to make switchblades legal in Indiana. (And no, I am not making that up. The vote was 47-0.)

And also yesterday, a colleague helpfully sent me a link to this example of our legislature’s priorities:

A bill to prohibit implementation of Agenda 21. Provides that an Indiana governmental entity may not adopt or implement: (1) any policy recommendations relating to the United Nations’ 1992 “Agenda 21” conference on the environment and development that deliberately or inadvertently infringe on or restrict private property rights without due process; or (2) any other international law or ancillary plan of action that contravenes the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of the State of Indiana. Provides that an Indiana governmental entity may not enter into any agreement with, expend any sum of money received from, or pay any money to, an “Agenda 21 organization”. Provides that any such actions are void.

For those who have somehow failed to encounter the threat that is “Agenda 21,” the reference is to a toothless measure passed back in 1992 by the United Nations, encouraging members of that body to care for the environment and urging members to consider various approaches to sustainable development. It included references to energy-saving strategies like mass transit. (The “21” stands for “21st Century.) To the crazy fringe, this modest set of non-binding proposals was and is an obvious communist/socialist/fascist plot–and an attack on American sovereignty. (Don’t ask me to explain the logic of this. There is no logic–just paranoia.)

These proposals join previously discussed efforts to make public school children recite the Lord’s Prayer, and to teach creationism in science classrooms. These are the pressing issues with which our elected officials occupy their time, at least when they aren’t searching the skies for those black UN helicopters…..

It’s embarrassing to be a Hoosier during the legislative session.

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They’re Back….

Lock up the silver and hide the children’s eyes–the Indiana General Assembly is back in session.

The motley crew we citizens elect to what the late Harrison Ullmann used to call The World’s Worst Legislature is already hard at work on measures ranging from treatment of wild hogs to mandating the teaching of cursive writing. I’m sure their attention to these world-shattering issues reassures us all.

Most of the trivial, unwise and the just plain wacky proposals will eventually die in committee. I just hope that one bill in particular lands in that graveyard: the proposal to allow students to carry guns on campus.

This is the second time this proposal has surfaced, and it mystifies me. What problem, exactly, is this misguided measure intended to correct? What is the purpose of encouraging an armed student body? Has anyone considered the consequences of adding firearms to venues occupied by large groups of stressed-out college students, many still adolescent and hormonal?

I once was sued in Small Claims Court by a student to whom I had given a grade of B-. When he had exhausted the (extensive) campus appeal process without convincing anyone of the great indignity of that assessment, he brought suit. (In light of the stupidity thus displayed, I am convinced that the B- was a gift–but I digress.) Arm this unhinged young man, or others not unlike him, and he might well have skipped the lawsuit and just blown me away.

I’m one of those who would like to see some reasonable limits placed on access to guns. Like most people who advocate for more control, I have no illusions that we can rid American society of the millions of guns already out there, and frankly I have no great passion to confiscate them. But I get impatient, to say the least, with the utter paranoia of the gun fringe, with the NRA’s ridiculous belief–rebutted by all credible research–that the way to ensure public safety is to arm everyone.

I’ll tell you one thing that will happen if students are allowed to pack heat on campus. There will be a lot fewer professors willing to teach. Maybe that’s the real motive?

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The Bullies’ Pulpit

A few statistics:

9 out of 10 LGBT students experience harassment at school, and LGBT teens are bullied 2 to 3 times as much as straight teens.
More than 1/3 of LGBT kids have attempted suicide.
LGBT kids are 4 times as likely to attempt suicide than are their straight peers.
For every lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth who is bullied, four straight students who are perceived to be gay or lesbian are bullied.

Despite statistics like these, and despite a spate of recent headlines about episodes where tormenting behaviors have pushed GLBT youth to suicide, the Indiana General Assembly has refused to pass the sort of anti-bullying legislation that is law elsewhere; our intrepid legislators have expressed concern that anti-bullying measures might infringe the “free speech rights” of the students who disapprove of classmates they perceive to be gay. That such disapproval tends to take the form of persistent physical and verbal abuse evidently does not merit equivalent concern.

If you are a gay teen in Indianapolis, and you are coming to terms with your sexuality in an environment that not only doesn’t protect you, but does protect the bullies who make your life miserable, you don’t have a lot of options. If your parents aren’t accepting, your situation is even worse. Most of us remember how hard it was just being a teenager, let alone a teenager facing mocking, marginalization and other evidence of social disapproval.

The Indiana Youth Group has been a godsend to so many of those teens. It has provided a “safe place”–an environment in which troubled and/or angry and/or depressed young people can get counseling, make friends, and feel valued. The 15-year-old girl who was cutting herself because the physical pain made the psychic pain easier to bear; the 13-year boy who was already raiding the family’s liquor cabinet in an effort to blot out classmates taunts; the self-destructive 16-year old boy who rarely spoke–as well as less damaged children who simply yearned for a non-judgmental environment–find their way to IYG. For twenty-five years, the organization has been a safe haven for children who are hurting as a result of thoughtless cruelty and intentional homophobia.

Our Indiana legislators couldn’t find it in their hearts to pass a law that would protect these vulnerable children against bullying in our schools. They also couldn’t find time in their busy legislative schedules to address a number of important issues facing the state. But at least twenty of them managed to find the time to do a little bullying of their own.

Their mean-spirited effort to pass a law that would keep IYG from participating in the State’s specialty license plate program failed–due largely to a grass-roots outcry joined by news media around the state. But these lawmakers weren’t willing to let the matter die. They wrote to the Department of Motor Vehicles, claiming that IYG and two other organizations had “breached their contracts” by giving a small number of plates to donors–a practice that was evidently fairly widespread, and a “breach” that legislators and the BMV had previously ignored.

When you are a state agency, and you get a letter signed by twenty of the people who control your funding, you listen. So IYG’s participation in the specialty plate program has been suspended, and the bullies in the General Assembly have achieved by stealth what they couldn’t manage in the light of day.

It’s worth considering what it is that they have achieved.

Their “victory” has kept license plates with the legend “IYG” off the road. In their fevered imaginations, such plates would have signaled “acceptance” of the existence and equal civil status of gay people, and thus hastened the decline of Western Civilization As We’ve Known It.

Their “victory” has also kept IYG from participating in a fundraising program, proceeds of which would have supported a staff position. Fewer hurting children will be served if they can’t replace those funds. (But they are gay hurting children, so they don’t matter.)

Studies show that bullies have a quite distinctive mental make-up—what psychiatrists call a hostile attributional bias, a kind of paranoia characterized by attributing hostile intentions to others. The trouble is, bullies perceive provocation where it does not exist. (Think of the persistent accusations from homophobes about the nefarious “gay agenda” or their more recent insistence that groups like IYG are “targeting” children.) Those imaginary provocations are used to justify their aggressive behavior. Bullies pick on people and act aggressively because they process social information inaccurately. Unfortunately, real people get hurt in the process.

If there is one thing we have learned from this distasteful, embarrassing display it is that we’ve elected at least twenty bullies to the Indiana General Assembly. No wonder they wouldn’t pass anti-bullying legislation.

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