Spanking To The Point Of Bruising Could Be Legal

Because its recent bill legalizing anti-gay discrimination just wasn’t atrocious enough, Kansas is set to consider legislation that would allow parents to spank their kids to the point of bruising. Current state law lets parents hit their kids without leaving bruises, but that just isn’t enough for State Rep. Gail Finney, and so she’s proposing that parents be allowed to hit their kids hard enough to leave bruising up to 10 times in succession. What a noble way to fight back against onerous Big Government regulations.

The bill doesn’t stop there: It would also allow parents to give others permission to hit their kids, including school officials, and permit “any such reasonable physical force on the child as may be necessary to hold, restrain or control” them.

“What’s happening is there are some children that are very defiant and they’re not minding their parents, they’re not minding school personnel,” Finney explained.

So, to recap: Gay people renting apartments? Totally not cool. Tying your daughter to a chair and smacking her to the point of bruising? No problemo!

Of course, corporal punishment — or, as some call it nowadays, child abuse — isn’t good for kids. As Bustle reported:

The second it takes to spank a child can lead to lifetime of consequences, according to a new study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics. Children who are spanked by parents have a more limited vocabulary, higher levels of aggression, and are generally less pleasant to be around later on in life. “There’s just no evidence that spanking is good for kids,” University of Texas at Austin parental discipline researcher Elizabeth Gershoff said.

There’s hope for Kansas children, though: House Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee chairman John Rubin says he isn’t even sure he’s going to consider the bill.