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No one seems to keep track of these things, but it is
possible that more vile laws are passed to protect our
children
than for any other reason, up to and including
excuses like family values
and national
security.
Consider certain recent news about our state. Last
Friday, it was reported that child abuse is off the
charts
in Colorado. Two days earlier, there were
stories about how Colorado ranks dead last in the nation
for vaccinating children against whooping cough, measles,
diphtheria and polio.
Do not despair, though. Our legislature is acting to protect Colorado children from many dangers that confront them.
For instance, there's the harm that could befall children who do not recite the Pledge of Allegiance every schoolday. This may not sound serious at first, but consider that there was no American Pledge of Allegiance until Francis J. Bellamy, a socialist and an editor of a children's magazine, wrote one in 1892.
The American children who grew up before the Pledge were a bloodthirsty lot, for they fought in the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War and decades of Indian wars. Their violence and greed in various gold rushes, including Colorado's, has become the stuff of legend, and their consumption of alcohol and morphine was prodigious. Clearly they needed the Pledge.
Nor should we forget those poor children who went to
school before 1954, when Congress added under God
to
the Pledge. Some apologists might call those chain-smoking
fiends the greatest generation
who managed to win
two world wars and survive the Great Depression. Just
think, though, of how much more character they might have
developed had they been required to recite the modern
Pledge.
So, those who care about Colorado's children should be
glad to see that HB 04-1002 is under consideration; its
summary says that it specifies that the pledge of
allegiance shall be recited each school day by pupils in
elementary and secondary educational institutions supported
or maintained in whole or in part by public funds.
That's only a start, though. Colorado children could get additional protection from two other bills.
One requires public libraries to adopt and implement
a policy of internet safety for minors
so that they
cannot see material that is harmful to their beneficial
development as responsible adults and citizens.
All sorts of things come to mind as being harmful, like
websites that encourage driving Hummers across alpine
tundra, but the bill is more specific. An image is
harmful to minors
if it has nudity or sex.
I have yet to read of how any minor has suffered a debilitating disease that could have been prevented by immunization, or a broken bone from a step-parent, let alone death while in state-supervised foster care, by looking at a picture on a computer screen, but perhaps the General Assembly has access to information that is denied the rest of us.
The internet is not the only such threat to minors,
though, and so there's another bill. It seems that Rep. Ted
Harvey, a Republican from Highlands Ranch, wandered into a
store where any 5-year-old could see these erotic videos
with hard-core pornographic covers.
He said I think
it's inappropriate to have these materials harmful to a
minor located where they can flip through them.
Harvey's bill to save us from that horror is eight pages
long, and it has already been amended, so I may not hit all
the high points here. But as I read it, HB 04-1078 makes it
a Class 2 misdemeanor to disseminate to a minor any
material that is harmful to minors.
He's not talking about only pictures, for the bill
defines material
as a written or electronic
depiction, description or representation
which
depicts nudity or sexual activity,
among other
things. This being a family newspaper, there's only so much
of this bill I can quote.
There is considerable written description
of
sexual activity
in the Old Testament, but those who
provide Bibles to minors might be able to escape justice by
citing the law's loophole for materials that of
literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for
minors.
That could be an interesting trial, though,
since Harvey made no exception for religious or spiritual
value.
At any rate, we should sleep better, knowing that our legislature is focusing on retail store displays, library computer terminals and classroom rituals. Plus, they're not wasting precious tax dollars on childhood vaccination and abuse-death investigations. When it comes to protecting children, our General Assembly has its priorities.
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