Roger Schlafly, the son of Phyllis Schlafly, took to the Eagle Forum blog today to attack new legislation that would push states to impose penalties on people who do not report child abuse to the police. Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) proposed the bill in the wake of the scandal at Penn State, where a former graduate assistant reportedly failed to report to the police an apparent sexual assault on a child that he had witnessed. In his blog post, Schlafly contends that such a law would create “a nation of snitches,” and that the “mandatory reporting law is a direct attack on the autonomy of the American family.” He even hypothesizes that the case against ex-Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky is “bogus” and part of a “witch-hunt,” writing: “I would not be surprised if this Penn State witch-hunt concludes by the state paying millions of dollars in bogus lawsuits, and no one found guilty of anything. Plus a horrible new anti-family law.”
Traditional British and American law does not require citizens to report crimes that they witness. We are not a nation of snitches. If your neighbor is illegally smoking dope, you do not have to say a word.
Most people are happy reporting a crime against a child, because the child is usually unable to speak up for himself. But the mandatory reporting laws go way beyond that. They require reporting suspicions.
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Penn State officials have been charged with a crime for not reporting a similar allegation against Sandusky in 2002. The entire case hinges on the memory and credibility of McQueary, but now he has changed his story and says that he reported it to the police. There is no physical or other hard evidence of abuse. According to Sandusky, the child involved will testify that McQueary is lying about what he claimed to have seen.
Meanwhile, the legal, financial, spiritual, and emotional toll of false accusations is enormous. Families are unjustly busted up every day from overzealous CPS workers. The blog Legally Kidnapped has news everyday of the damages causes by CPS.
The mandatory reporting law is a direct attack on the autonomy of the American family. Many parents have practices that provoke the disapproval of others. All it takes is one anonymous call to CPS, and a govt social worker will knock on the door and threaten to put the kids in foster care. There is no due process. The upshot is that know-nothing social workers are redefining how American children are to be reared, and this is a change for the worse.
And it is only going to get worse, as the Democrats want to expand the mandatory reporting.
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I would not be surprised if this Penn State witch-hunt concludes by the state paying millions of dollars in bogus lawsuits, and no one found guilty of anything. Plus a horrible new anti-family law.
