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?

Comments

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.

Comments

The Indiana Legislature in Action

When a Facebook friend posted yesterday that the Indiana House had voted 78-2 to declare the Grouseland the state’s official rifle, I was sure he was joking.

Apparently, he wasn’t.

According to news reports, the House vote followed a similar wide approval (48-2) by the Senate.  If Gov. Daniels signs it, Indiana will have the (dubious) distinction of being only the third state with an official gun.

Whoopee for us.

So let’s see if I can put this important piece of legislation into perspective. Lawmakers didn’t “have time” to consider legislation that would have allowed Indianapolis citizens to hold a referendum on public transportation–a critical element of economic development. But they did have time to debate the proper singing of the  national anthem, consider whether Girl Scouts are secret lesbian members of Planned Parenthood, and argue about who should be able to buy specialty license plates. They couldn’t manage to agree on the terms of a smoking ban that would actually protect the public health, but they were able to be virtually unanimous in designating a state gun.

Well, that will certainly make life better for those of us who live in Indiana.

Use that gun. Kill me now.

Comments

Those Hits Keep Coming….

Ummn…how much longer must we endure this “short” legislative session?

And why are Indiana lawmakers so spooked by gay people?

This week alone, we’ve heard how the Girl Scouts are “really” in the business of producing commie feminist lesbians. Yesterday (while even  Brian Bosma was roaming the Statehouse halls passing out Girl Scout cookies and trying to distance himself from that particular bit of crazy), the Roads and Transportation Committee acted to save Indiana motorists from the calamities that would undoubtedly follow should the Bureau of Motor Vehicles allow the Indiana Youth Group to–gasp!–have a specialty license plate. (IYG supports gay youth. Oh, the shame…)

Now, in all fairness, the issuance of specialty license plates has proliferated, and there undoubtedly need to be some standards and controls. But everyone present understood the real target of the measure that would disqualify groups that “advocate for violation of federal or state law, violation of generally accepted ethical standards or societal behavioral standards or fund individual political candidates.” Furthermore, our moral stewards–er, legislators–will henceforth decide whether groups violate those rules. Can’t leave such pressing issues to the bureaucrats at the BMV.

In an effort to cloak the new rule with a veneer of impartiality, the measure requires–as a condition of approval–a burdensome amount of financial information from the petitioning nonprofits, 500 signatures of Indiana residents, and evidence of a “statewide public benefit from the use of the money the group would receive from the sale of license plates.” And each plate would have to be sponsored by a lawmaker and individually approved.

Because our elected officials don’t have anything more important to do than ensure the moral purity and “public benefit” of messages on Indiana’s license plates.

As this morning’s Star noted, “The changes come in the wake of controversy over the granting of a license plate to the Indiana Youth Group, which supports gay youths. That issue, though, was never discussed Wednesday by the House Roads and Transportation Committee.”

In order to prevent the predictable calamity that would occur if license plates bearing the legend “Indiana Youth Group” were allowed to roam freely over Indiana highways, the committee eliminated plates for the Indiana Association of Chiefs of Police, IU Health, Indiana Soccer, the Zoo, the Marine Foundation and Ducks Unlimited. (Just as well. You can’t ever tell what those ducks might be up to…)

Bottom line to all this foolishness–the legislature wants to pick and choose which organizations’ messages the state will “endorse” by allowing them to sell specialty license plates. The Free Speech clause of that pesky First Amendment says that is exactly what government cannot do. It’s called “content neutrality”–meaning that government can’t allow some messages and disallow others.

If the legislature doesn’t want let IYG operate under the same rules as everybody else, there’s no need for this sort of elaborate kabuki theater.

Just get rid of the whole damn specialty license plate program.

Comments

Our Despicable State Legislature

What can anyone say about Indiana’s legislature that adequately captures the perversity, the stupidity and the venality of the place?

It is hard to believe the sheer amount of embarrassing antics they have managed to cram into a short session. From the patently unconstitutional (teaching creationism, really? Every court that has ever considered the matter has said the same thing–you can’t teach religion in public school science class) to the teaching of cursive (breaking news: you weren’t elected to the school board, and by the way, what happened to your pious devotion to local control?) to Right to Work (go ahead and spend zillions of dollars on slick ads promising jobs, but everyone knows this is all about hardball politics and Republicans weakening the unions because they have the votes), our elected Representatives have spent the session giving the middle finger to the citizens of Indiana.

As if they hadn’t done enough harm, they have now killed the bill that would have allowed Indianapolis to hold a referendum on whether to tax ourselves to support adequate public transportation.

Think about this. These are the lawmakers who’ve been pontificating about the importance of job creation–that’s how they’ve justified Right to Work, which–according to unbiased research–has absolutely no effect on job creation. Good public transportation, on the other hand, is a proven job creator and economic development generator.

So why the hypocrisy? Why deny the citizens of Indianapolis the right to decide for ourselves whether we are willing to pay a few extra bucks on our tax bill for decent transportation?

It is galling enough that we have to go hat in hand to the State for permission to conduct our own business. It is absolutely infuriating that the legislators whose rural districts survive by virtue of taxes generated in central Indiana–the state sales and income taxes that come primarily from the urban areas they routinely piss on–are the ones willing to kill the goose that lays their golden eggs. Our transportation bill was killed by the very people who would share the benefits without contributing to the costs.

I wish I thought we would throw these bums out in November, but Indiana political history suggests that we will go like sheep to the polls, and vote for the same old same old–after all, these are the candidates who promise to arrest immigrants, keep the “wrong” people from voting, and push gays back into the closet where they belong.

Harrison Ullmann was right: Indiana has The World’s Worst Legislature. But we elected them.

Comments