There are days here in Wisconsin where I wonder how I will keep my sanity with all of the Republican craziness going around. On February 23rd, 2012 Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) introduced a Senate bill that has, in my opinion, rather disturbing language directed at single parents:
5. Providing, for use in its statewide projects and for use by organizations that receive grants from the Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board (CANPB), educational and public awareness materials and programming that emphasize the role of fathers in the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect.
This bill requires the CANPB, in conducting those activities, to emphasize nonmarital parenthood as a contributing factor to child abuse and neglect.
For further information see the state fiscal estimate, which will be printed as an appendix to this bill.
The people of the state of Wisconsin, represented in senate and assembly, do enact as follows:
SECTION 1. 48.982 (2) (g) 2. of the statutes is amended to read:
48.982 (2) (g) 2. Promote statewide educational and public awareness campaigns and materials for the purpose of developing public awareness of the problems of child abuse and neglect. In promoting those campaigns and materials, the board shall emphasize nonmarital parenthood as a contributing factor to child abuse and neglect.
SECTION 2. 48.982 (2) (g) 4. of the statutes is amended to read:
48.982 (2) (g) 4. Disseminate information about the problems of and methods of preventing child abuse and neglect to the public and to organizations concerned with those problems. In disseminating that information, the board shall emphasize nonmarital parenthood as a contributing factor to child abuse and neglect.
SECTION 3. 48.982 (2) (gm) of the statutes is amended to read:
13 48.982 (2) (gm) Provide, for use by the board in its statewide projects under sub. (5) and for use by organizations that receive grants under subs. (4) and (6), educational and public awareness materials and programming that emphasize nonmarital parenthood as a contributing factor to child abuse and neglect and the role of fathers in the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect.
Senator Grothman – I am a “non-marital” parent…my 12 year old son is a straight “A” student, an athlete and plays a pretty mean guitar. He has never been abused or neglected. On the other hand this young lady had “marital”
parents…
The [15 year old] girl was 70 pounds when she was rescued. She told investigators during lengthy interviews at the hospital that most of the food she ate was scraps she found on the floor or in the garbage. She had spent most of five years in the basement of her family's Madison home, where she was beaten and sexually assaulted.
Her father, Chad G. Chritton, and stepmother, Melinda Drabek-Chritton, have been charged with child abuse, child neglect and reckless endangerment.
Instead of pointing the finger of blame towards marital status (and sexual orientation which you are also doing in this bill), which only matters in your little conservative fairyland, why don’t you do a little research into the subject? How about looking at poverty, the upbringing of the parents, the mental health of the parents or maybe even provide more funding for the Department of Family Services.
Saying the reason for child abuse is because the parents are not married (and not mother and father) is like saying water cannot be wet unless it is in a lake.
Now to give Senator Grothman the benefit of the doubt maybe that laser focus on jobs distracted him from doing any real research into the causes of child abuse...(I almost wrote that with a straight face).