DA Threatens Teachers for Doing Their Jobs

Today I came across a disturbing entry in the American Life League's "Wednesday STOPP Report - March 31, 2010." (STOPP stands for "Stop Planned Parenthood.") (The report can be found here.)

The entry linked this letter (pdf) from Juneau County Wisconsin District Attorney Scott Harold Southworth. In the letter Southworth encourages local school districts "to temporarily withdraw from human growth and development instruction, effective with the 2010-2011 school year, until the Wisconsin Legislature amends or repeals these new mandates." The sex education mandates are contained in 2009 Wisconsin Act 134. The justification for this recommendation involves specious claims such as that the Act "Promotes the sexual assault of children."

The claim I found to be most alarming was this:

Exposes our teachers to possible criminal liability – §948.40 of Wisconsin's Criminal Code deals with “Contributing to the Delinquency of a Child.” Anyone who intentionally encourages or contributes to the delinquent (criminal) act of a child can be charged under this statute. For example, if a teacher instructs any student aged 16 or younger how to utilize contraceptives under circumstances where the teacher knows the child is engaging in sexual activity with another child — or even where the “natural and probable consequences” of the teacher's instruction is to cause that child to engage in sexual intercourse with a child — that teacher can be charged under this statute. The teacher need not be deliberately encourage[sic] the illegal behavior; he or she only need be aware that his or her instruction is “practically certain” to cause the child to engage in an illegal act. Moreover, the teacher could be charged with this crime even if the child does not actually engage in the criminal behavior. Depending on the nature of the child’s behavior, the teacher could face either misdemeanor or felony charges with maximum punishments ranging from 9 months of jail to up to six years of prison.

Now I'm no legal expert, but if such trumped-up charges were to be leveled against a teacher, wouldn't the charges originate from the District Attorney’s office?

I see this letter as nothing more than a thinly veiled threat by Southworth that he would abuse the power of his office for the purpose of malicious prosecution, in hopes that the threat will cause others to yield to his extremist anti-education political agenda.

I don't know what to do with this information. Who protects the public from rogue District Attorneys?

UPDATE:
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel covered the story on April 6.

Bryan's Refugees

Since apparently at least one of my compatriots has found my blog, so far, I'll initiate sharing of stories of what we may have said that compelled Bryan to ban us and delete our comments. (Personally I consider deleting comments, then accusing the commenter of lying, generally to be bad form, but I suppose when one is running a ministry one is more concerned about ensuring that comments stay on message.)

Here's my story:

Bryan was unhappy that I had objected to his claim that President Obama is evil for, among other violations, having rescinded the Mexico City Policy. Bryan responded by providing several links, mostly to MSM sources, that he seemed to believe supported his case.

His links included the following, which I used for my response:
ReligiousTolerance.org
Washington Post
Reuters UK

I responded with the following:

The last paragraph of the Washington Post article:  "Lifting the Mexico City Policy would not permit U.S. tax dollars to be used for abortions, but it would allow funding to resume to groups that provide other services, including counseling about abortions."

No tax dollars for abortions.

The information contained in the topic from Religious Tolerance was even more telling:

Under "1984 Background:"  "Thus, an agency's funding might be cut off from its contraceptive/family planning counseling services in one country if it had any abortion activity in the same or in another country."

Under "2003: President Bush partly abandons Mexico City policy:"  "An anonymous senior White House aide said: 'Any agency that provides treatment for AIDS will get the money - as long as none of the funds are used for family planning purposes or for abortions - except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in danger.'"

Thus purpose of the Mexico City Policy was not to defund abortions, because abortions are not otherwise funded.  The purpose was to hinder "contraceptive/family planning counseling services," a goal that is supported by only a tiny minority of the U.S. public.

From Reuters:  "George W. Bush reinstated it on Jan 22, 2001, in one of his first policy moves as president, saying: 'It is my conviction that taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortions or advocate or actively promote abortion, either here or abroad.'"

Here Bush intentionally deceived us by falsely associating the Mexico City Policy with ending taxpayer-funded abortions, which the Mexico City Policy did not affect.

I also had posted another comment, which I reposted as a comment to Violet's post here. (Based on the location of his ban announcement, this post may not have been included in the decision, although I can understand why my opinion would be considered controversial.)

Would anyone else care to share?

(For those who do not know who I am talking about: no, I am not going to provide a link.)