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Thursday November 29, 2007
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Massachusetts Spanking Ban Would Criminalize Good Parents Warns Family Group
"This bill equates loving, corrective discipline with hateful, harmful abuse"
SACRAMENTO, CA, November 29, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Yesterday morning on Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends, Campaign for Children and Families President Randy Thomasson debated Rep. Jay Kaufman, whose bill to ban spanking was heard yesterday in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
House Bill 3922 states "it shall be unlawful" for a parent to provide corporal punishment to their own children. Taking direct aim at good parents who occasionally spank to correct rebellion, the bill specifically bans "the willful infliction of physical pain," even temporary pain to a child's buttocks.
"This bill equates loving, corrective discipline with hateful, harmful abuse," said Thomasson, who earlier this year helped lead the opposition to a similar California bill by Democratic Assemblywoman Sally Lieber.
"Appropriate spanking is not 'beating' or 'abusing' a child, which is a ridiculous and offensive comparison," continued Thomasson. "When appropriate spanking is lovingly administered, it greatly helps a disobedient youngster to become a well-adjusted adult who respects authority. But the lack of parental discipline and a philosophy of permissiveness can produce a rebellious, compulsive teenager. There are untold numbers of Americans who testify that being spanked has made them a better person in life -- I'm one of them."
"We already have enough legitimate laws prohibiting physical abuse of children, and this proposal is certainly not one of them," added Thompson. "Some parents spank and some parents don't, and that's their right as parents. Government regulation of parents' discipline wipes out the right of parents to raise their own children. This is wrong. God gave children to parents, not to the state," he concluded.
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