Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline finally gets it: He lost the sex case

Despite the fact that his web site still maintains he won a teen sex case, Attorney General Phill Kline has finally admitted that, ah, he didn’t exactly come out victorious.

At issue is a Tuesday federal court ruling that slapped down every aspect of Kline’s effort to mandate the reporting of all underage sexual activity. The judge made a point of noting that Kline had usurped legislative authority and ignored the law.

The Wichita Eagle blog reports this morning that our not-so-beloved attorney general finally admitted his “mistake” to The Eagle editorial board.

“It’s not a victory.” No kidding.

That “no kidding” was a comment from Eagle blogger Phillip Brownlee, and is being echoed this morning by the rest of us in Kansas.

Brownlee continues:

In fact, Kline contends that by allowing health professionals to exercise their judgment about when teen sex is injurious and should be reported, U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten’s order establishes a constitutional right to privacy that threatens other reporting laws. “The truth is Judge Marten’s decision went too far,” he said.

So does that mean that Kline is likely to appeal the decision? Yes, he said.

Great, more good tax money thrown after Kline’s bad opinion.

I agree with Brownlee. I am not happy to know that Kline is spending yet more of my tax dollars to go after the state’s 21^st Century versions of Romeo and Juliet.

Let's put this into perspective.

As a mother, I am not at all thrilled, happy, or approving of the idea that any teenager at any time would be having sex.

Call me a prude, but having a son just out of that age group gives me a tiny bit of perspective. I think teenagers are too immature for the responsibility, the confusions and the difficulties that come with a physical relationship – not to mention the possibility of pregnancy and a child who will have two immature parents.

On the other hand, Kline seems to think that even sex between consenting teens is rape, or at least that’s the way the statement on his web site reads. Kline’s April 18 statement starts:

I have always maintained, and continue to maintain, that the rape of a child harms a child. When the Kansas Legislature wrote this statute, they unquestionably had the protection of children in mind.

No one argues about the issue of rape, reporting it and protecting children. To claim that his opponents are doing that is not only arrogant but appalling, yet that is the implication of Kline's April 18 statement.

More than t hat, Kline's statement doesn't admit the existence of any other kind of sex than rape.

Thus, I am left wondering along with the rest of the state, the Legislature and the federal judge what Kline would do to Romeo and Juliet.

If all underage sex is rape, then who do you charge? Is Romeo the rapist or Juliet? What damage would Kline do to the lives of those unfortunate teenagers if he ever had the chance to go after them?

Coach should have been “packing boxes, not holding a press conference”

ESPN columnist Graham Hays calls for Penn State to fire Rene Portland.

Hays writes:

Because for the school to find enough evidence to fine the coach $10,000, there had to be something more than the word of one disgruntled former player. And even if those extra words were little more than whispers, Portland should have been packing boxes, not holding a press conference.

By wimping out on Portland's punishment, the school has effectively said it's willing to enter next season with a bigot coaching its women's basketball team.

The columnist for the Altoona Mirror is a little more charitable, sort of.

While Portland has survived perhaps long enough to end her career on her own terms, probably sooner than later, the overall health of the Penn State women’s program is questionable. Can Portland continue to recruit effectively after her own university cited her for discrimination in a sport known for its diversity?

Penn State said further such cases involving Portland will be grounds for dismissal. It did not, however, address how it might react if another former player comes forward with another round of allegations.

Based on Portland’s track record, that’s probably only a matter of time.

Larry Hicks from the York Dispatch writes about how Penn State’s response is “too little, too late.”

All that matters is what's going on in Portland's head. Because clearly, if she's making coaching decisions based on a player's ethnic origin, that would be wrong. If she's making such decisions based on race, religion or sexual orientation that would be wrong, too.

Hicks argues that a player should only be judged on her performance on the court.

I don't care if she's purple, had one eye and was missing a foot. If (former Penn State player Jennifer) Harris could do her job, she deserved to play at Penn State without being hassled. If she worshipped trees, she deserved to play at Penn State. And if she was a lesbian, she deserved to play at Penn State.

Hey, this is America and Portland is entitled to think anything she likes about human sexuality or anything else. If she wants to harbor ill will against lesbians, that's her business, I guess. But she also has an obligation, as a coach and as a member of the Penn State family, to adhere to the university's anti-discrimination policy.

So she had a choice. She either should have put her personal bias aside for the good of the team and the athletes on the team, or quit her job as coach. She can not have it both ways.

"Pulling a Penn State," or the not-so-fine art of refusing to hold coaches accountable for their actions

Once again, a little basketball and lesbi-phobia blogging…

A new catch phrase may have just entered the sports world. Coined by USA Today columnist Christine Brennan, the phrase to “pull a Penn State” may soon come to denote a university that ignores problems in its sports programs.

The phrase refers to this week’s tepid response by the university in question to a controversy surrounding its women’s basketball coach Rene Portland. Tuesday Penn State’s own internal investigation reported that Portland created a "hostile, intimidating and offensive environment" for player Jennifer Harris because Coach allegedly believed Harris is a lesbian.

Harris, by the way, says she is not gay -- a fact that truly doesn’t matter when it comes to discrimination. (Note that even well-meaning straight folks can sometimes miss the fact that they can be subjected to the same discrimination gays face, or even the same unfair laws. It’s all a matter of perception… but I do digress.)

Harris’s basketball career was in tatters, and she was driven off the team.

In response, the university gave Portland a light slap on the wrist.

Brennan writes:

Portland's reprimand was slight — a $10,000 fine against the backdrop of a six-figure salary. She also was ordered to participate in diversity and inclusiveness training and was told if she ever does anything like this again, the university definitely will fire her then.

It’s important to note that this will be the second time Portland has been sent to diversity and inclusiveness training.

Brennan notes:

With a feisty scowl, Portland (this week) denied discriminating against Harris, who filed a federal lawsuit against her. She also called the university's investigative process "flawed." Now that's chutzpah. The university president gives her another chance, and she runs right up and kicks him in the teeth.

…

Portland and homosexuals have an ignominious history together. In the 1990s, she refused to deny in a Philadelphia Inquirer story that she discriminated against lesbians in her program. When she was saying this back then, she found some takers, especially in the living rooms of Middle America.

One wonders, however, what she is finding today in a world that is more open-minded and, presumably, far more surprised to hear such stark words of discrimination, words that, if one lives by them, also happen to be against the law.

But Portland is a smart woman. She clearly knows how to pick whom to despise on the Penn State campus. Replace the word "gay" with black, Asian, Jew or even overweight, and she would be cleaning out her desk today.

Women’s Hoops Blog has a good background piece on the issue called “A Brief History of Rene Portland and the L Word.”

Baptist college shows some Christian compassion -- with a little help from an attorney

The University of the Cumberlands --the Baptist school that expelled a student recently for the crime of being gay – has decided to not to flunk the dean’s list student.

Knight-Ridder reports:

Jason Johnson, 20, and his attorney, Don Waggener of Lexington, said yesterday that under terms of the agreement with the University of the Cumberlands, Johnson:
* Will be allowed to send in work to complete his courses so he can receive final grades. When he was kicked out on April 6, Johnson, who was on the dean's list, received all F's on his transcript. "This will preserve my academic record," he said.
* Relinquishes his right to sue the university for damages.
* Retains his right to file complaints with the U.S. Department of Education and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the regional accrediting agency.

A slap on the wrist for damaging a young woman's career

I don't usually blog about sports, but I am a huge fan of women's basketball. The current case of Penn State women's coach Rene Portland is frustrating and ridiculous, all at the same time.

Mechelle Voepel, one of the most knowledgable columnists who follows the game, has a good overview today at ESPN about the case.

Portland's long history of apparently denigrating lesbian players caught up with her this year when she and her university were sued for allegedly kicking a player off the team for being gay. The player, Jennifer Harris, who is black but not gay, contends that Portland removed her because she perceived Harris to be a lesbian.

Tuesday Penn State announced that its internal investigation had proven that the charges were correct, but that it was only giving Portland what amounts to a slap on the wrist ($10,000 fine and attending yet another diversity training, among other things). The University's own report reads:

There was no evidence to substantiate Harris' claim of race discrimination. [But] enough evidence existed to substantiate a claim that Portland discriminated against Harris by creating a 'hostile, intimidating, and offensive environment' because of Harris' perceived sexual orientation. This is in violation of Penn State Policy AD-42, which prohibits discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, sexual orientation, and other personal characteristics."

Meanwhile, Portland responded with a statement saying that she expected to one day be "fully vindicated."

Obviously, coach doesn't think she did anything wrong.

Lesbian-baiting women athletes has a long history in American sports. It has never been fair to anyone, whether lesbian or straight. It's hurt the sport, destroyed the careers of brilliant athletes and hurt teams.

I can't help but laugh when I think that a coach like Portland might have turned away the next Sheryl Swoopes, the WNBA MVP who came out this year. But this isn't a joke. This kind of prejudice hurts lives and stunts careers. Isn't it time to let it go?

Meanwhile, Harris is continuing with her lawsuit with the support of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. We may not know everything about this case yet, but we do know that it is far from over.

The center has posted another column by Voepel here.

Kansas Sex Case: Phill Kline loses, gets slammed for usurping legislative authority

A federal judge has ruled that Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline overstepped his power when he declared that health care providers must report every instance of sexual activity between consenting teenagers as sexual abuse.

Speaking through a spokesperson, Kline immediately declared victory. (I’m not kidding. Honest, I’m not.)

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten of Wichita issued the 39-page ruling this afternoon. He noted that Kline was attempting to step outside his constitutional authority.

In accordance with the general principles of the separation of powers, the executive department cannot generally usurp or exercise judicial or legislative power . . . . In view of both the statutory language and the long-standing interpretation of the reporting statute, the Kline Opinion effectively amends the reporting statute by eliminating the discretion the legislature gave mandatory reporters to determine if there had been an injury. Under the Kline Opinion, the mandatory reporter has no discretion with respect to reporting illegal sexual activity of a minor … in contravention of the plain language of the statute and legislative intent…

The Wichita Eagle reported that even though Kline claimed he had won, he is expected to appeal the ruling. (I’m not making this stuff up, folks.)

Kline's office said the judge did what the attorney general had hoped for in upholding the Kansas child abuse reporting law as constitutional.

“That’s what we’ve maintained, that the statute is constitutional,” said Whitney Watson, spokesman for Kline’s office.

Kline issued a written statement around 6 p.m. See the Eagle story for the statement.

The judge noted that both sides in the case conceded that it was mandatory for health care providers to report cases of incest, sexual abuse of a child by an adult and sex involving children younger than 12.

The judge goes into detail about the testimony in the case, making the ruling interesting reading because of how clearly it sets out the issues. You get a much better sense of what’s going on from reading the ruling, then from any reporting, and that’s not a slam on newspaper reporters. It’s only a criticism of the amount of space they have.

One of the most interesting parts of the ruling, for me, was the impact of mandatory reporting on children who are actually victims of abuse.

The judge wrote:

Finally, beyond the irreparable harm that all minors may be subject to, evidence supports a finding that mandatory reporting of all illegal underage sexual activity will harm those minors who are actual victims of “sexual abuse” as defined by SRS’s working definition. SRS Director Sandra Hazlett stated that the Kline Opinion would increase the number of intake reports, increasing the workload without a corresponding increase in funding. Besides overwhelming state agencies, reporting all sexual activity as sexual abuse tends to trivialize actual sexual abuse, according to Dr. Nancy Kellogg, pediatrician and professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Texas.

This is an important case for many reasons. Besides from what this will do to protect children, there is the utter irony of a staunch conservative like Kline being declared to be a horrible "activist" who usurps legislative power.

The good news-bad news of theocracy in the United States, and the future of our way of life

Kevin Phillips has a good article in The Nation today where he notes:

Is theocracy in the United States (1) a legitimate fear, as some liberals argue; (2) a joke, given the nation's rising secular population and moral axity; (3) a worrisome bias of major GOP constituencies and pressure groups; or (4) all of the above? The last, I would argue.

And now a word for tolerance & compassion from our Christian universities

What's truly surprising is that Notre Dame, Baylor and Pepperdine would work so hard to make discrimination legal. This is a sad day for higher education.

Can you imagine the uproar if they did this so that they could keep African Americans out of their schools? However, the bill specifically says that the proposal "is not meant to allow an institution to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age or disability."

365gay.com reports:

(Washington) Private Christian colleges would be excepted from local and state non-discrimination laws under a proposed amendment to the Higher Education Act - a move that would allow the schools to legally reject LGBT students.

The amendment, proposed by Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), would prevent accrediting boards from making adherence to non-discrimination laws a requirement.

The measure passed the House last week and is currently before the Senate

Brigham Young, University of Notre Dame, Baylor, Pepperdine and Samford universities have all been lobbying heavily for passage of the bill.

Interesting: Gov. Sebelius for VP?

Daily Kos is reporting that there's building buzz about running Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius for vice president.

Very interesting.

The drag and joy of taxes

Yeah, taxes are a drag. I’m no more thrilled about them then you are, yet taxes are much more than an irritation. Whether they are federal or state, being sent to D.C. or Topeka, Kansas, taxes are one of the ways that we help each other.

Sometimes they pay for things we don’t like. (Personally, I’m not thrilled by the Bush Administration’s policy of funneling money to conservative churches or military spending.) But other times, taxes are the means by which we help children in need, families struggling with illness or people swept up in natural disasters.

Taxes and the government programs they fund aren’t the only way that people get help. However, they are one effective way for all of us to pool our resources. They help us support those who need a helping hand up to get out of bad situations.

The rich get those eager hands from parents or grandparents, or an economy that enables them to buy the help they need. George W. Bush got that helping hand when his father’s friends bailed him out of repeated business failures early in his career, not to mention all the other ways his name and money got him special help that a poor man or even a middle-class one would never have received. (Think about how Bush got into top academic programs with mediocre grades, to name just one example.)

This is not a rant or a call for class war. In fact, I hope it’s not a rant at all, but a somewhat sad, but determined commentary about why we all need to own up to our responsibility for each other.

Usually, the rich can buy what they need. The rest of us sometimes must look to our neighbors for help. There are also moments, though, such as disasters of the scale of Hurricane Katrina, when everyone needs the help government can provide.

To turn our back on taxes and to undermine the system, as the GOP appears to want to do, is to turn our back on our neighbors. I will take no part in that.

This is why on Tax Day, I am both a tad irritated and happy. I want to help people. Don’t you?

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has some interesting tax facts.

Among other things:

• The percentage of income that most categories of taxpayers pay in federal taxes is at the lowest level in decades. Despite this fact — and despite the large current federal budget deficit and the even larger fiscal problems projected for coming decades — the Administration and Congress are pushing for additional tax cuts that would aggravate these problems.
• Federal revenues below historical norms. Federal revenues in 2005 were smaller as a share of the economy than their average level of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s. These low revenues have been a major contributor to the return of large deficits.
• People making over $1 million a year are $100,000 better off on Tax Day. In 2005, households with annual incomes above $1 million (who represent only one out of every 500 households) will receive an average of $100,000 apiece due to the tax cuts enacted by Congress in 2001 and 2003. This is about twice the total annual income of the typical American household.
• Tax cuts for millionaires wipe out deficit savings from program cuts. The President’s budget proposes sizeable reductions over the next five years in nearly every domestic discretionary (non-entitlement) program. Yet the President’s tax cuts for people who make over $1 million a year would cost more than the total savings from all of the proposed cuts in domestic discretionary programs, including the cuts proposed in education, environmental protection, veterans’ medical care, and medical research.