News & Commentaries Related to Children

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December 2007

ARIZONA

Open your heart

Foster parenting brings stability to a child in need — maybe for the 1st time

Opinion by Tim Bee, Special to the Arizona Daily Star

12-24-07 -- News stories of child endangerment and death have become far too common these days. There should be more safe places where children can go when Child Protective Services removes them from abusive or neglectful homes. . . . With five children of our own, my wife Grace and I never thought about becoming foster parents until we were faced with the opportunity to help a member of our family. . . . Child Protective Services placed our niece into our home shortly after she was born nearly two years ago and we have been tremendously blessed to have her. . . . It began as a kinship care placement. Since then we have become licensed foster parents and are eagerly awaiting her adoption. . . . The most recent statistics show that at any one time in Arizona there are more than 9,000 abused or neglected children in out-of-home care. More than 75 percent of these children are able to be placed in family-like settings with relatives or in foster homes. Other children live in group homes and shelters. . . . In Pima County as of Sept. 30, there were 2,442 children in out-of-home care. Needless to say, there is a tremendous need for relative caregivers and foster parents in our community.

KENTUCKY

Statewide problems with child services

By Bob White

12-23-07 -- When news of problems involving child protection and permanency services of Hardin County broke nearly two years ago, a key fighter for family rights warned the issue was not isolated. . . . Parents throughout the state were losing children after unfounded allegations of abuse and neglect, said David Richart, executive director of the National Institute on Children, Youth and Families. . . . In recent weeks, the widespread problems Richart warned of have made headlines from Louisville to Lexington. . . . He credits the light shone on abuses of power within Hardin County’s Department for Community Based Services for bringing problems within other state child protection and permanency offices to the forefront.

MARYLAND

State settles case of boy abused in foster care

By Lynn Anderson | Sun reporter

12-19-07 -- The Maryland Department of Human Resources has agreed to pay out $1.5 million to care for a Baltimore boy who suffered irreversible brain damage after he was abused by another child in the foster home where he was placed by the city Department of Social Services. . . . The boy, Brandon Williams, who is now 5 years old and still unable to speak or walk, will receive an annuity of $80,000 a year for life to pay for his medical care, according to attorneys. The state has also agreed to pay the family $580,000 and guarantee that the boy will receive Medicaid assistance even though the annuity would have rendered him financially ineligible.

GEORGIA  

Suit targets lawyers in tot's death

By Andy Miller, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

12-17-07 --  A 2-year-old Atlanta girl whose death sparked widespread outrage was placed in a dangerous home because her publicly appointed attorneys failed to represent her properly in court hearings, a lawsuit alleges. . . . Nateyonna Banks died in November 2006 after being placed with her mother, who was charged with beating her to death. The girl's estate filed suit Friday against Fulton County's child advocate attorney office and the lawyers who represented her. . . . Attorney Don Keenan of the Keenan Law Firm, who filed the suit in Fulton state court, said Fulton's Office of the Child Advocate Attorney failed to fully investigate Nateyonna's mother, Shandrell Banks. . . . Keenan said Banks had a history of Fulton's Department of Family and Children Services removing her children, had a mental illness and had a drug possession conviction. . . . The child advocate attorney office is understaffed, underfunded and overworked, Keenan said, citing a University of Georgia study.

MICHIGAN  

Judge: Michigan must release names to group in abuse case

The Associated Press

12-17-07 --  (AP) — A judge has ordered Michigan to disclose to an advocacy group the names of 2,893 foster children who were subjects of abuse or neglect allegations while they were in state custody. . . . Donald A. Scheer, a U.S. District Court magistrate judge in Detroit, on Friday also ordered the state Department of Human Services to preserve the 2006 and 2007 e-mails of 33 department officials. . . . The ruling is pending an agreement on how to narrow the search to e-mails relevant to the operation of the foster care system.

TEXAS

Texas Attorney General sues two sites for children's privacy violations

They're accused of violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

Jaikumar Vijayan

12-10-07 -- Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott has sued two Web sites that cater to children for failing to take adequate measures to protect their identities and personal information. . . . The lawsuits are the first in the US to be brought under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998 and highlight the many privacy pitfalls facing minors that the law is designed to address. . . . COPPA requires Web sites to implement controls for obtaining verifiable parental consent before information can be gathered from children. The law also prohibits sites from requiring children to disclose an excessive amount of personal information as a precondition for participating in online games and activities. . . . "Federal law provides important protections to prevent children from divulging sensitive personal information and to shield them from inappropriate sexual or violent content online," Abbott said in statement. According to him, the two Web sites his office has targeted -- TheDollPalace.com and Gamesradar.com -- are in violation of COPPA because they failed to include necessary disclosures and obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children.

INDIANA

Open book, open minds needed for child safety

Indianapolis Star Editorial

12-8-07 -- Our position: Improvements in child protection must not be taken for granted. . . . Release of the files in the appalling case of TaJanay Bailey does not appear to refute the state's contention that it has improved its system for child protection. . . . What is shown in the 1,500-page record released by court order on Thursday is that no system is better than the human judgments made within it. . . . Nor is there any system, in the broad sense of the term, that cannot be made more responsive to ever-changing situations that threaten young lives. What if, for example, police had been notified when TaJanay was brought to the emergency room in May 2006? What if the Thanksgiving holiday had not delayed a trip to court where her removal from the home where she died would have been argued for? . . . The book remains open as to what went wrong and who might have acted wrongly in the state's management of 3-year-old TaJanay and her infant brother, who were placed on a trial basis with their mother and their mother's boyfriend and kept there over the objections of a counselor and a child advocate. TaJanay died from abuse in that home and Charity Bailey and Lawrence Green face murder and neglect charges. . . . That the book has been opened is a credit to Gov. Mitch Daniels, the state Department of Child Services and DCS director James W. Payne, who inherited a child protection system with manifold problems, one of them being overuse of confidentiality on cases that -- tragically -- had taken on public interest.

KENTUCKY

Ky. courts facing challenges to life without parole for juveniles

The Associated Press

Published: December 8, 2007

12-8-07 -- Five young offenders — serving life without parole for crimes committed in Kentucky while juveniles — have challenged that penalty, saying state law doesn't allow it. . . . Their lawyers, part of a national push by youth advocates to re-examine life sentences for young offenders, hope to expand on a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2005 that invalidated the death penalty for juveniles. . . . "Kids are just different," said Assistant Public Advocate Tim Arnold, who represents one of the five, Kevin Stanford. "We don't just give up on them altogether. Life without parole says we're giving up on them." . . . Prosecutors don't buy the argument. Chris Cohron, commonwealth's attorney in Bowling Green, said when a crime is especially egregious, the offender's age doesn't matter. "There is a certain percentage of the population that just doesn't need to be put back in society," Cohron said. . . . Michelle Leighton, a University of San Francisco professor who has studied juvenile lifers, says, "Kentucky is at a turning point" on the issue.

FLORIDA

3 Women Charged With Stealing Public Assistance Money From DCF

12-7-07 -- A state Department of Children and Families employee and two other women have been charged with stealing more than $1.5 million in state assistance money. . . . The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Friday that Violet Jones, 41, of Miramar, a DCF supervisor in Plantation, was charged with grand theft, fraud, identity theft, misconduct and money laundering, among other charges. . . . Jones allegedly diverted to her own home a debit-type card that is used by public assistance recipients and was tied to a real account. Investigators say she then authorized extra cash benefits to be deposited into the unknowing recipient's account, then withdrew cash using the card. Jones worked for DCF for 22 years. . . . Also charged in the case were sisters Shanika Shorter, 25, and Tanisha Shorter, 22, both of Fort Lauderdale. . . . The trio also allegedly used public assistance benefits accounts in Shanika Shorter's name to siphon state money, investigators said.

November 2007

Child Abuse Worsens as Families Change
By Michael Reagan

11-30-07 -- Child abuse is growing out of control here in America, and there’s a good reason why: the traditional family is coming apart at the seams. . . . According to reports made to state agencies, there were 900,000 incidents of child abuse in 2005 alone. These raw numbers give no clue just how much child abuse correlates with parents’ marital status or the make-up of the victim’s household, although these are vitally important factors in child abuse cases. The proof is in the news far too often. . . . Nothing is more important to child welfare than living within the bosom of a stable family, and nothing is more destructive to their well-being than being forced to live in a fatherless household where dad is replaced by the live-in boyfriend, or as is often the case, by a series of live-in boyfriends. . . . In almost all cases of horrific child abuse that is exactly the situation of the victim. Nobody is more at risk today than children living in fatherless homes where the mother’s boyfriend is sharing her bed while avoiding the commitment of marriage, or a new husband views her children as unwanted consequences of the new marriage.

TEXAS

DNA test confirms Riley Sawyers is Baby Grace

By Harvey Rice, Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

11-30-07 -- DNA testing confirms that the child known as Baby Grace, whose body was found in a box on a sand bar in West Galveston Bay, is 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers, the Galveston County Sheriff's Office said Friday. . . . Sheriff's investigators received laboratory results Friday showing a match in DNA samples from the body discovered Oct. 29 by a fisherman and samples from Riley's father and mother. . . . Riley's mother, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 19, and her husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 24, both of Spring, are in Galveston County Jail in lieu of $350,000 bail each on charges of injury to a child and evidence tampering. . . . Riley's father, Robert Sawyers, 20, of Painesville, Ohio, and Trenor were not married. . . . Although Trenor confirmed to investigators Nov. 24 that Riley was Baby Grace, the DNA match gives investigators scientific evidence proving the identity that can be used in court, the Sheriff's Office said.

MISSISSIPPI

Report gives state's Youth Court system scathing review

By Jimmie E. Gates

11-28-07 --Mississippi's Youth Court system compromises public safety and violates the constitutional rights of children because of overwhelming caseloads and inadequate resources, according to a report. . . . The two-year study by the Mississippi Youth Justice Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Juvenile Defender Center also outlined other problems plaguing the system, including:. . . / Untimely appointment of attorneys to represent youths. / Inadequate representation of youths. / An overflow of referrals from schools. . . . Youth courts are overrun with referrals from local schools where children are routinely arrested for minor, school-related offenses that drain resources, clog dockets and fill detention-center beds, according to the study.

October 2007

Sexual Misconduct Plagues US Schools

Investigation finds 2,570 teachers booted after accusations of sexual misconduct

By Martha Irvine & Robert Tanner, AP National Writers

10-23-07 -- AP Video The young teacher hung his head, avoiding eye contact. Yes, he had touched a fifth-grader's breast during recess. "I guess it was just lust of the flesh," he told his boss. . . . That got Gary C. Lindsey fired from his first teaching job in Oelwein, Iowa. But it didn't end his career. He taught for decades in Illinois and Iowa, fending off at least a half-dozen more abuse accusations. . . . When he finally surrendered his teaching license in 2004 - 40 years after that first little girl came forward - it wasn't a principal or a state agency that ended his career. It was one persistent victim and her parents. . . .Lindsey's case is just a small example of a widespread problem in American schools: sexual misconduct by the very teachers who are supposed to be nurturing the nation's children. . . . Students in America's schools are groped. They're raped. They're pursued, seduced and think they're in love. . . . An Associated Press investigation found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for actions from bizarre to sadistic.

MAINE

Abstainers Are Killers?
By Brent Bozell III
10-19-07 -- Portland, Maine, found itself in the national spotlight on the morning of Oct. 17. The King Middle School was debating whether to provide birth control to sixth-graders without their parents' consent or knowledge -- not just condoms, but even birth control pills or contraceptive patches. . . . ABC's "Good Morning America" picked up the story, with anchor Diane Sawyer first professing shock at the young ages involved, but then echoing the proponents' justification: Children "are caught in the changing worlds of early puberty and sexual messages everywhere." . . . That's the line that rings in the ear. ABC is addressing a social problem: How to deal with middle-schoolers wanting to have sex because they're inundated with sexual messages in ads, in music videos, with sexual themes endlessly discussed and dramatized on television? . . . Sawyer invited on talk show host Glenn Beck and "sexologist" Logan Levkoff (promoted by fans as the "Get It On Guru") to debate it. Sawyer asked Levkoff: "Would you draw the line anywhere? What if it were grade school?" Amazingly, she replied, "I don't necessarily draw the line, because we're in a world where we get so many sexual messages." . . . Levkoff lives in a parallel universe. We are talking about little boys and little girls, 11 years old. . . . The lesson from the anything-goes crowd is so illogical it borders on the obscene. In order to "protect the youth" from unsavory sexual messages, we should provide them will all the technology so they can have "safe sex" -- even at age 11. But who is responsible for this bombardment of sexual messaging in our culture that's fueling this fire?

Lifers as Teenagers, Now Seeking Second Chance

By Adam Liptak

10-17-07 -- In December, the United Nations took up a resolution calling for the abolition of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for children and young teenagers. The vote was 185 to 1, with the United States the lone dissenter. . . . Indeed, the United States stands alone in the world in convicting young adolescents as adults and sentencing them to live out their lives in prison. According to a new report, there are 73 Americans serving such sentences for crimes they committed at 13 or 14. . . . Mary Nalls, an 81-year-old retired social worker here, has some thoughts about the matter. Her granddaughter Ashley Jones was 14 when she helped her boyfriend kill her grandfather and aunt — Mrs. Nalls’s husband and daughter — by stabbing and shooting them and then setting them on fire. Ms. Jones also tried to kill her 10-year-old sister. . . . Mrs. Nalls, who was badly injured in the rampage, showed a visitor to her home a white scar on her forehead, a reminder of the burns that put her into a coma for 30 days. She had also been shot in the shoulder and stabbed in the chest.

The big list: Female teachers with students
Most comprehensive account on Internet of women predators on campus
10-16-07 -- WorldNetDaily.com’s list of the teacher 'sexpidemic' cases WND has documented where female teachers have been accused, or convicted, of assaulting students.

CALIFORNIA

Republican Governator Hands Cal. Kids To Homosexuals

by Alan Stang, NewsWithViews.com

10-16-07 -- Personally, I do not want to know what goes on in the ladies’ room. I do know that ladies rise from the table and leave together for the ladies’ so they can talk without embarrassment about how handsome, how charming and how utterly brilliant we men are, but I don’t want to know any more. Even worse than knowing any more, far worse, would be going with them into the ladies’ room. Speaking for other normal men, any man – except the plumber – who spends time in the ladies ’ room, is not a man we want covering our back; we would rather hitch hike across Baghdad or stand knee deep in kimchi. . . . But California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a law (SB777) that allows boys and girls in California government schools to use each others’ rest rooms and locker rooms. When I went to school, before the revolution – just after they installed indoor plumbing – any boy caught in the girls’ room in school would have been dragged into the street and beaten into a bloody mess. If he survived, his embarrassed father would have finished him off. But, again, that was before the revolution. . . . Consider also that any curious boy in the girls’ room inevitably will get into trouble. The trouble will be entered in his file, which will stay with him the rest of his life, and the school psychologist will put him on anti-boy drugs, which will predispose him to adult drug addiction. . . . The Governator’s new law also bans usages like “Mom and Dad,” and “husband and wife,” because such combinations are offensive to California sodomites and maybe even abnormal. I do not exaggerate. Der Governator also signed AB394, which subjects parents and teachers to indoctrination with “anti-harassment training.” It mandates all kinds of homosexual propaganda the state will pay for in the schools. From now on, homecoming kings and queens could be of any sex.

Children as state informants

Thomas Lifson, American Thinker Blog
10-5-07 -- I remember being horrified as a child when I learned in the 1950s that under communism children were turned into informants against their parents. I could not believe that the cold hand of the state could be so cruel as turn child and parent against each other. . . . But it is beginning to happen in America. Michael Graham of the Boston Herald writes a hair-raising account of his child's recent visit to a pediatrician. I came across it on Jules Crittenden's blog.  Graham writes:

"The doctor wanted to know how much you and mom drink, and if I think it's too much," my daughter told us afterward, rolling her eyes in that exasperated 13-year-old way. "She asked if you two did drugs, or if there are drugs in the house."  . . . "What!" I yelped. "Who told her about my stasher, I mean, ‘It's an outrage!' " . . . I turned to my wife. "You took her to the doctor. Why didn't you say something?" . . . She couldn't, she told me, because she knew nothing about it. All these questions were asked in private, without my wife's knowledge or consent. . . . "The doctor wanted to know how we get along," my daughter continued. Then she paused. "And if, well, Daddy, if you made me feel uncomfortable." . . . Great. I send my daughter to the pediatrician to find out if she's fit to play lacrosse, and the doctor spends her time trying to find out if her mom and I are drunk, drug-addicted sex criminals. . . . Graham goes on to cite the case of a child being asked about her parents' weapons, all perfectly legal, and the police being informed. . . . Children are being turned into police informants via their doctor (and nevermind medical confidentiality). This turns out to be widespread, since professional guidelines for pediatricians from the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend interrogating children about the parents.

FLORIDA

U.S. Prosecutor Held in a Child Sex Sting Kills Himself

By Abby Goodnough, NY Times

10-5-07 -- A federal prosecutor charged with traveling from Florida to Michigan to have sex with a 5-year-old girl committed suicide on Friday in prison, his lawyer said. . . . The prosecutor, J. D. Roy Atchison, 53, was arrested on Sept. 16 leaving a plane in Detroit as part of an Internet sting operation led by the sheriff’s department in Macomb County, Mich. . . . The authorities said he had been chatting online for two weeks with an undercover detective who posed as a mother offering to let men have sex with her young daughter. . . . At the time of his arrest, the authorities said, Mr. Atchison, of Gulf Breeze, Fla., was carrying a Dora the Explorer doll, hoop earrings and petroleum jelly. . . . A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons said Mr. Atchison was found unresponsive on Friday morning in the special housing unit of the federal prison in Milan, Mich. He had been transferred there after trying to hang himself in the Sanilac County Jail days after his arrest.

September 2007

WISCONSIN    

After Overturning Verdict, Judge Keeps Pask in Jail

By Jenn Karlman

9-26-07 -- Two weeks ago, a jury convicted a registered sex offender of trying to lure a nine-year-old girl into a restroom at a Sheboygan park. Hours after the verdict, the judge overturned it, saying the park was not secluded, which was a key element to the criminal charge. . . . But Mitchell Pask did not walk out of jail. He was held on a separate disorderly conduct charge, and a judge's decision on Tuesday means Pask will likely stay in jail for at least another week-and-a-half. . . . Judge Van Akkeren could have let Pask go -- after all, under the law his felony conviction for child enticement was overturned -- but instead Van Akkeren decided to wait and keep him in jail until next week Friday.

TENNESSEE  

Memphis lawyer imprisoned for child porn

9-24-07 -- (UPI) Memphis lawyer D. Beecher Smith II, who at one time represented Elvis Presley, has been sentenced to five years in prison on child pornography charges. . . . He blamed his venture into viewing child pornography on depression over his identical twin being put in prison for child molestation as well as his mother's death and alcoholism, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported Sunday. . . . "I am truly sorry," said Smith, 58, in a statement in court. "My fault lies in curiosity, I was lured to sites that featured pornography, and then I was lured to sites that featured child pornography." . . . U.S. District Court Judge Bernice Donald said numerous friends and family members sent letters on Smith's behalf, but added that viewing child pornography helps sustain a market for the exploitation of children.

The Teenage Casualties of Casual Sex
By Doug Giles
9-22-07 -- Chances are historically high, young person, that if you screw around sexually nowadays well…you could very well be…screwed. As in, for life, with the “gift” that keeps on giving—namely, a Sexually Transmitted Disease. . . . FYI young dudes and dudettes: no matter what they tell you on the various TV commercials, these diverse and multitudinous sex plagues aren’t just a “little inconvenient” like a runny nose, halitosis or dandruff. They are devastating. . . . The entrance of an STD into your B-O-D could equal one or more of the following: perpetual physical pain, public humiliation, chronic depression, infertility, increased chance of birth defects in your kids (if you can still have them), cervix, penile and anal cancer and/or an early and horrible visit from the Grim Reaper. . . . Now, I know what most teenage crotch rockets and their aiding and abetting adult purveyors of the follow-your-little-head propaganda are thinking: “It could never happen to me. I’m special. That kind of stuff only happens to skanks like Courtney Love and Tommy Lee, and anyway, more than likely this is trumped-up parent/Bible Belt-inspired blather lathered up to make us keep our zippers in the upright and locked position.”

Five Ways to Help Children Cope with Their Parents' Divorce

by J. Benjamin Stevens

8-29-07 -- The fact is that parents can have a positive impact on this process, if they will do the following: . . . Reassurance – Reassure them of your love, and your ex-spouses love for them. Remind them frequently that your divorce had nothing to do with them, that they are not at fault, and that your love for them will never change. . . . Flexibility – Be flexible to meet your child’s needs above your own. If your ex has visitation scheduled for a weekend when your son has a soccer game, let your ex go to the game, and you stay home. Try to work together to meet your child’s needs, and not get petty with visitation scheduling. . . . Respect – Never, never, never, speak badly about your ex in front of your children. Always be respectful of your ex in words and actions in front of your kids. If you want to sound off, do that with your friends, never your kids. . . . Curtail Dating – I believe that when you make the decision to divorce, you also make the decision that your kids come first. Don’t begin dating and introducing new people into your kids lives. It will only add to more loss. If you feel the need to date, do so when the kids are visiting your ex, or when they in bed at night. Your time is limited, and it should be spent with your kids. Only introduce someone to your kids if you are engaged and plan on marrying again. . . . Fake It – Sometimes you won’t feel like being kind towards your ex, and that’s when you’ll just have to fake it. Put a smile on your face, be respectful and nice. Remember, the gift of kindness you are giving is not for your ex, it is for your kids. They need that gift most of all. . . . Source:  "The Devastation of Divorce" by Trish Berg, posted at Inspired Parenting.

ILLINOIS

Illinois School Pushes Smut on Children as Young as 12 with Porn-Laden Book

Special to LifeSiteNews.com By J. Matt Barber

8-29-07 -- (LifeSiteNews.com) - Illinois School District 126, covering Alsip, Hazelgreen and Oak Lawn, has defended its choice to assign summer reading to 12- and 13-year-olds that is replete with harsh profanity and references to teen sex (even teen sex with adults).  . . . Prairie Junior High School's required reading list for rising 8th graders gave children six books to choose from over the summer.  Parents have complained that three of the six books contain adult content which is highly age-inappropriate.  Those complaints, however, have fallen on deaf ears.  At a recent school board meeting, school board members said they intend to continue assigning the books.  . . . To add insult to injury, the school didn't even have the courtesy to warn these kids - or their parents - about the adult content within the assigned reading.  And parents are understandably furious.  If one of my daughters came to me at twelve having been assigned this smut, I'd be ticked-off too. . . . Whatever happened to classics like Ivanhoe or Up From Slavery?  Sure, some of them may even contain limited profanity and adult content, but there's a big difference.  The profane content in Fat Kid isn't sporadic.  It's pervasive and gratuitous.  The book has 110 pages containing the F-word and other profanities, and there are multiple crude sexual references. . . . With all the objectionable material children are subjected to on the internet, on television and in theatres, it's outrageous that educators, who are charged with helping to mold the minds of these 12- and 13-year-olds, would willingly - if not eagerly - contribute to their moral degradation by pushing this kind of vulgarity on them.  It amounts to educational malpractice, and School District 126 should have its mouth washed out with soap.  . . . I telephoned Robert Berger, superintendent of schools for District 126, fully expecting him to assure me that this foolishness would be remedied.  But instead, his response was defiant, defensive and arrogant.  . . . Berger refused to answer me when I asked him several times if District 126 believed that such mature content was appropriate for children.  (I wonder; if it's so appropriate, then why wouldn't he defend it?)  . . . I asked Berger if one could infer that the district found the material appropriate since it was assigned to children.  He quipped, "Infer whatever you want to." . . . No one's calling for a book burning here, but c'mon, these are just kids.  Does District 126 have any standards of decency at all?

MASSACHUSETTS

'Gay' lessons violate civil rights, man says
Case of dad handcuffed and jailed for objecting moves to appeals court

By Bob Unruh, © 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

8-24-07 -- A Massachusetts man handcuffed and hauled to jail after he objected to a public school teaching his kindergarten-age son about homosexuality has gone to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals seeking justice. . . . The man, his wife and another family are battling what they describe as a court order for segregation, after a judge ruled if they didn't like the school's advocacy for homosexuality, they could take their children and leave. . . . They also are arguing that U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf's statement that "as it is difficult to change attitudes … after they have developed, it is reasonable for public schools to attempt to teach understanding and respect for gays and lesbians," actually is unconstitutional. . . . The appeal is in the case brought by David and Tonia Parker and Joseph and Robin Wirthlin, who have children of school age in Lexington, Mass. They alleged district officials and staff at Estabrook Elementary School violated state law and civil rights by indoctrinating their children to approve homosexuality, which they, as Christians, teach is immoral. . . . Wolf, however, concluded that Christians who attend public schools in Massachusetts need such teachings to be "engaged and productive citizens" and dismissed the families' civil rights claim. . . . Wolf said it is reasonable, indeed there is an obligation, for public schools to teach young children to accept and endorse homosexuality. The judge agreed that "the rights of religious freedom and parental control over the upbringing of children … would undermine teaching and learning." . . . "Wolf's ruling is every parent's nightmare. It goes to extraordinary lengths to legitimize and reinforce the 'right' (and even the duty) of schools to normalize homosexual behavior to even the youngest of children," said a statement from the pro-family group Mass Resistance.

OREGON  

DA pledges review after judge tosses swatting case

Yamhill County - The boys' lawyer prepares to sue officials, citing "unlawful prosecution"

Susan Goldsmith, The Oregonian Staff

8-22-07 --Yamhill County District Attorney Bradley Berry promised a full review of the prosecution of two 13-year-old McMinnville boys to determine what his office "did well and what we could improve upon" in pursuing criminal charges that a judge threw out Monday. . . . Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison walked out of the courtroom free from supervision for the first time in six months after apologizing to four girls as part of a compromise that averted a sexual harassment trial. They had been accused of swatting girls on the buttocks and touching two girls on the breast at their middle school. . . . "I believe these youths have now moved from a model of bad behavior in the schools to an opportunity to be advocates for good behavior in the schools -- behavior which promotes respect for other students and their personal and physical and psychological integrity," said Circuit Judge John L. Collins.

MARYLAND

Telling kids homosexuality 'innate' challenged
Court asked to overturn curriculum deemed inaccurate, unsafe
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

8-3-07 -- A public school district board's decision to teach homosexuality is innate and anal sex is just an alternative will be challenged in court after officials in Maryland refused to address concerns raised by parents. . . . Officials with the Thomas More Law Center told WND the issues are too important to ignore. . . . The curriculum, developed in-house by the Montgomery County Board of Education, not only is inaccurate, but it could expose children to life-threatening diseases by failing to provide sufficient warnings about alternative sexual behaviors, according to Edward L. White III, trial counsel with the Law Center who is handling the case. . . . "This curriculum is full of factual inaccuracies and runs counter to sound educational policy," he said. "It should not be taught in the public school." . . . White said parents also should be alarmed by the teaching of "sexual variations." . . . "The students are introduced to anal sex, which has a much higher risk rate of [various] infections," he said. "It's endangering the lives of students." . . . "It's not the school system that's going to be taking care of them," said White. "It falls on parents, because the school did not do its job."

July 2007

MARYLAND   

MONTGOMERY SEXUAL ABUSE CASE

Prosecutors Challenge Dismissal

Judge Had Ruled That Search for Interpreter Took Too Long

By Mariana Minaya, Washington Post Staff Writer

7-25-07 -- Prosecutors in Montgomery County said that they intend to ask an appellate court to overturn a judge's dismissal of a case against a Liberian immigrant charged with raping a young girl. The judge had ruled that repeated delays caused by the court's failure to find an interpreter fluent in the accused man's native dialect had violated his right to a speedy trial. . . . Mahamu D. Kanneh was arrested in August 2004 after witnesses told police he raped and repeatedly molested a 7-year-old relative. The case was dismissed last week, nearly three years later, by Circuit Court Judge Katherine D. Savage.

This is Child Protection?

By Gregory A. Hession, J.D.

7-23-07 --Imagine your terror and panic: you are awakened by an armed SWAT team in the middle of the night, demanding to be let into your home to take your children away. The grim-faced agents show you no warrant, no court order, and no mercy. They give you no reason for their presence, other than having received an unspecified report about child abuse. They bark commands and menace you and your children with their weapons. The children are taken out of your home screaming, shoved into cars, and whisked away into the night. . . . This is not a Soviet-era movie script, but a reality in thousands of homes in the United States every year, courtesy of state child protective services agencies. . . . The least reported and understood social crisis of our time is the vast new police state run by these state social services agencies, which are generically referred to as “child protective services,” or CPS. The states have different names for them, such as Department of Social Services or Department of Children and Families, but they are all operating under a federal mandate. Whatever they are called, our next generation of children may never recover from their predatory intrusions into families. . . . Some may dismiss these concerns as hyperbole, but the numbers are appalling. In 2005 alone, over 3.3 million reports involving six million children were made to state child-abuse hot lines, the vast majority of which eventually proved to be untrue. Over 500,000 children currently are in foster care. Another 300,000 or so are forcibly removed from their homes by the system every year. Tens of billions of dollars are expended every year on the care of these children, and on the juvenile court systems which enable it, along with costs of therapy, drugs, lawyers, and related services.

Ex-justice says kids don't respect courts

Mark Hornbeck / Detroit News Lansing Bureau

7-23-07 -- Public education, criticized roundly throughout the National Governors Association conference here the past four days, took another punch on the chin today, this time from retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. . . . O'Connor said growing disrespect for judges and erosion of independence of the judicial branch is partly due to students not learning much about American government in school. . . . "The key to maintaining our system lies in the education of our citizens," O'Connor told the 19 governors who stuck around for the final day of the summer meeting. . . . She added in her 12-minute speech that surveys have shown fewer teenagers can identify the three branches of government than can name the Three Stooges. . . . "Now I enjoy Larry, Moe and Curly, but" it's distressing that students don't know the most basic concepts of government, said O'Connor, a Reagan appointee who retired last year after 24 years on the high court. . . . Earlier in the four-day conference, business experts slammed public schools for being outperformed by education systems in foreign nations and for failing to put enough emphasis on math and science and technical fields. . . . O'Connor said civics education must be a high school requirement. In Michigan, civics for many years was the only mandated high school course and remains a requirement under the statewide high school curriculum adopted by the Legislature last year. . . . O'Connor said she is working with Arizona State University and Georgetown University to develop an online course about the judicial system for seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders, saying schools must make government education interactive, rather than just relying on "dull textbooks."

TENNESSEE  

Couple loses 8-year-old to Chinese birth parents
Lawyer for Memphis family says girl knows 'she is being ripped inside out'
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

7-23-07 -- A grieving Memphis couple has given up on its seven-year custody battle over a foster daughter after the Tennessee Supreme Court ordered the girl must be returned to her biological parents in China. . . . Larry Parrish, a lawyer for Jerry and Louise Baker, said in a statement the couple would not make themselves available to the media. But he said the family has concluded any further attempts to keep the 8-year-old girl they've called Anna Mae in their home would be futile. . . . "It has been soberly concluded by the Bakers that Anna has been forced by a defective system to suffer the wrongs the system has dealt her and that further delaying the execution of what she must now suffer cannot be expected to help," Parrish said Tuesday. . . . "Analogies to illustrate how the Bakers are can be drawn from your own imagination," he continued. "They are grieving with a grief that is as deep as any that any person could possibly conceive. They never will be able to heal, but they must start on the path of healing. The grief being experienced by Mr. and Mrs. Baker, probably, is not as deep and hurtful as the grief being experienced by Anna's little sister, Aimee. Likewise, the quantity and quality of the grief of Anna's older sisters and brother and her grandparents and cousins is hard to comprehend."

MASSACHUSETTS

Family Attorney Blows the Whistle on State Child Protective Services Agencies

By Bill Hahn

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:

7-11-07 -- Practicing family attorney Gregory Hession confirms child protective service agencies engage in abusive, deliberate and dirty tricks motivated by federal funding.

Follow this link to the original source: "Families Separated by the State"

COMMENTARY:

Every year thousands of families are forcibly separated from their children based on unsubstantiated or outright false allegations of child abuse. Gregory Hession, a practicing constitutional and family law attorney in Mass., says that for these families, the nightmare has only begun. . . . Children in child protective services (CPS) have been abused, wounded, brain washed, drugged, adopted out and some have even died. Hession has represented hundreds of these families and has dedicated himself to exposing CPS abuses and reuniting loving, deserving families. He documents CPS abuses in the July 23, 2007, issue of The New American magazine. . . . Hession's articles highlight true stories of families who have been targeted by CPS