Proof Positive Conservative Republicans Are Not the Only Crazies in Kansas – Democratic Legislator Wants to Make It Legal to Beat Kids

Is It Something in the Water Out There?

Kansas, which used to be the home of good old fashioned decent, help-your-neighbor family values men and women has lately become the bastion of all that is wrong in America politics.  The state has put ultra radical conservatives in charge and they are systematically wrecking state finances, education and the like.

But Republicans are not the only irrational home wreckers in the state.  A Democratic legislator wants to allow beating children.

This week, a Democratic lawmaker from Wichita introduced a measure that would amend Kansas law to allow parents, teachers and other adults to avoid child abuse investigations or prosecutions after they wallop children hard enough to leave bruises or red marks.

According to the Wichita Eagle, Rep. Gail Finney, a 54-year-old mother of three grown sons, is hoping to “restore parental rights” and “protect parents who spank their children from being charged with child abuse.”

If Finney’s amendment to current law is accepted — a dubious proposition — acceptable corporal punishment would be defined as “up to ten forceful applications in succession of a bare, open-hand palm against the clothed buttocks of a child and any such reasonable physical force on the child as may be necessary to hold, restrain or control the child in the course of maintaining authority over the child, acknowledging that redness or bruising may occur on the tender skin of a child as a result.”

Yes, just reading this bring a gag reflex to every decent person.  And the wonderment of just what kind of person would propose such a thing.  Kansas, you can do better, you can do a lot better, and we are pretty sure you couldn’t do worse than Rep. Finney.