April Fools -- Origin and Greatest Hoaxes

The First of April some do say
Is set apart for all Fool’s Day
But why the people call it so
Nor I nor they themselves do know

– Poor Robin’s Almanac (1760)

Where does the the custom of playing pranks on April 1 originate? Although the answer is likely unknown, roots can be traced to origins similar to the “April Fools' Day” folly we know today.

Stephen Winick, writer and editor at the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center, shares this information …

“People have long speculated about the origins of this most foolish holiday, suggesting the Roman Saturnalia, Druidic rites in Britain, the carnivalesque medieval celebration of the Feast of Fools, and even the Indian festival of Holi as possible origins. But despite attempts to establish an earlier origin for the day, clear references to a tradition of fooling in April don’t begin until the late Middle Ages.

“It’s possible that there’s a glimpse of April Fools’ Day in Chaucer’s “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” (ca. 1390), which shows the rooster Chauntecleer being fooled by, and in turn fooling, a fox. This occurs “Syn March bigan, thritty dayes and two,” or 32 days after March began, i.e. April 1. This would be an early, clear reference to the date, but many scholars think the word “bigan” is a scribal error … 

Chanticleer and the Fox in a medieval manuscript miniature

“In France, “poisson d’avril,” or “April fish,” is the name for a person duped on April Fools’ Day. The first reference to “poisson d’avril” is from a 1508 poem by Eloy D’Amerval called Le Livre de la Deablerie, or The Book of Deviltry. However, from the context we can’t be sure if the author was referring to April 1 or to fools in general. The idea of the “April fish” seems to be the fact that fish were plentiful and hungry in the spring, and thus easy to catch – an “April fish” was more gullible than a fish at other times of the year. Thus, a mere reference to an “April fish” does not itself prove there was a holiday on April 1 …

“The first certain reference to April Fools’ Day comes from a 1561 Flemish poem by Eduard De Dene. In the poem, a nobleman sends his servant on crazy, fruitless errands. The servant recognizes that he is being sent on “fool’s errands” because it’s April 1.”

(Stephen Winick. “April Fools: The Roots of an International Tradition.” Folklife Today. Library of Congress. https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2016/03/april-fools/. March 28, 2016.)

Fool's errands, April fish, foolish roosters – all may be referenced as distant relatives to our unofficial prank holiday, but one thing is certain – whatever the origins, the enduring power of this folk tradition is pretty amazing. The Catholic Church once held a carnival-like “Feast of Fools” (ironically on or about the feast of the Circumcision) in medieval France and England on January 1 that was eventually banned by the 15th century. But, the holiday continued for hundreds of years.

History Note:

The Feast of Fools was a festival celebrated annually on January 1st throughout Europe and particularly France. It was a cherished day, for it was the one day where Christian morals were abandoned and replaced with ridiculous rites. Serious Christians were allowed to create parodies of church rituals.

Essentially, it was the "fools", aka the lower class's, opportunity to openly mock the clergymen and the church, and create parodies of ecclesiastical ritual. The tradition was that a young boy was chosen as the mock "pope" or "bishop" and the highest local church officials were regulated to the status of servants. This young boy was called the King of Misrule, or the King of Fools. However, the fake bishop was dubbed other names, too. In England, he was referred to as King of the Bean and the Abbot of Unreason in Scotland. However, one thing certain for all fake bishops, and that was that they had the power to call people to disorder.

During the festival, performers wore animal masks and women's clothing, sang obscene and bawdy hymnal songs, drank excessively, hurled manure at bystanders, ran and leaped through the church, rolling dice at the alter, howling through the streets and other scurrilous acts that parodied the liturgy of the church. In addition, people would drive about on carts through the streets to rouse laughter from their fellows through performances that involved indecent gestures and language. One mini-play created loosely followed Mary's journey into Egypt on the back of a donkey and was appropriately titled, "Play of the Ass." During the mock services, prayer responses were replaced with a hearty, 'hee-haw' instead of an 'Amen.'

Victor Hugo wrote Quasi Modo as the King of Fools in Hunchback of Notre Dame in response to the festival centuries later.

(“La Fete des Fous.” Medieval Europe. http://medievaltimestheatre.weebly.com/the-feast-of-fools.html.)

Some of the Best Hoaxes Of All Time

* The earliest April Fools’ Day hoax on record was in 1698, says Alex Boese, curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. “People in London were told to go see the annual ceremony of the washing of the lions at the Tower of London,” he says. “They showed up at the Tower of London, but”—alas—“there was no annual lion-washing ceremony.”

The street prank worked so well that people kept pulling it year after year, targeting mostly out-of-towners. “By the mid-19th century, pranksters had printed up fake tickets,” he says. “Hundreds or thousands of people would show up,” only to realize they’d been tricked.

 An invitation to a bogus event at the Tower of London for April Fool's Day 1856.

* The Germans, through their newspapers, have a long and distinguished history of producing April Fools’ Day hoaxes, some more believable than others. In 1905, the Berliner Tageblatt, a German newspaper, reported that thieves had tunneled underneath the U.S. Federal Treasury and stolen all of its silver and gold. The story was quickly picked up by papers throughout Europe and the United States. It was huge news – or would have been, if true.

* In April, 1921, a Berlin newspaper produced a story which explained how a particularly innovative farmer derived lard from his pigs without killing them. The lard was removed surgically from the living animal, which was then stitched up to presumably produce yet more lard. The animal was numbed during the procedure, which could be performed up to three times per year, making the animal a living lard factory. First British, and later American newspapers reprinted the story and enhanced it.

* On April 1, 1949, a crowd of over 1000 people, paying a mark each, showed up at the Frankfurt Zoo to see a "snow-white elephant." Newspaper ads had said that the legendary animal had come all the way from Burma, accompanied by its handlers dressed in their traditional robes, and would be at the zoo for only a day before leaving for Copenhagen. And as promised, the crowd did get to see a snow-white elephant. But the next day they learned that it wasn't a genuine snow-white elephant. It was just one of the zoo's regular grey elephants painted white. 

* Popular Electronics published their April issue for 1955 including an article which described the concept of “Contra-Polar Energy”. Contra-polar energy was described as negative energy, which when applied to any electronic or electrical device would cause it to produce the exact opposite of what it was designed to produce.

In other words, if applied to a light bulb, the bulb would cast darkness rather than light. An electric element on a stove would become ice cold rather than generate heat. The energy could act as a brake on an electric motor. According to the magazine the energy was developed secretly by the military during the Second World War.

* On April 1, 1957, the British Broadcasting Corporation told viewers that there had been an “exceptionally heavy spaghetti crop” in Switzerland that year, due in part to “the virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil.”The BBC showed footage of spaghetti harvesters diligently picking noodles from trees. Some viewers were upset—but some called to ask where they could find a spaghetti bush. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied, “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.” 

BBC: Spaghetti-Harvest in Ticino - Click here.

* In 1962, the Swedish national network put on a technical expert who told the public that its black-and-white broadcasts could be made color simply by viewing through nylon stockings. Many Swedes fell for the hoax. There’s no truth to the rumor, however, that some have gotten their revenge by burning a giant goat every year.

 Kjell Stensson shows how to place a nylon stocking over a TV screen. He posed for this photo decades after 1962.

* On April 1, 1974, residents of Sitka, Aka., awakened to an eruption from nearby Mount Edgecumbe, an extinct volcano about 13 miles west on Kruzof Island - unaware that the plumes of smoke drifting up from the mountain's summit were actually piles of burning tires planted there by soon-to-be-local-legend Porky Bickar.

Bickar said later he had planned his stunt for years but was often thwarted by bad weather until 1974, when he and a compatriot dropped about a hundred tires from a helicopter, then lit them on fire. He also thoughtfully left a message imprinted in the snow: “APRIL FOOL.”

* On April 1, 1982, he Daily Mail (London) published an article titled "Do not adjust your set—it could be your bra!" in which it reported that 10,000 brassieres made by a local manufacturer had developed a serious problem. The support wire in the bras had been fashioned out of specially treated copper originally been designed for use in fire alarms. When this wire came into contact with nylon and body heat, it was producing static electricity which, in turn, was being emitted by thousands of unsuspecting women, causing interference with the reception of television signals throughout the country. As the article put it, "Widespread television interference, which has brought complaints from viewers all over Britain in recent weeks, is being caused not by unusual atmospheric conditions, but by 10,000 'rogue' bras."

The Daily Mail advised women to conduct a simple test to determine if their bra was "rogue": "After wearing the bra for at least half an hour, take it off and shake it a few inches above the TV." The paper displayed a picture of a model shaking her bra above a TV in order to show women how to perform the test. 

* In 1994, PC Magazine ran a column about a bill making its way through Congress that would prohibit the use of the Internet while intoxicated. Despite the name of the contact person, Lirpa Sloof (“her name spelled backward says it all,” the column concluded), many people took the story seriously.

* In 2008 the BBC presented evidence of a fascinating new step in evolution: A recently discovered colony of flying penguins, which migrates thousands of miles from the Antarctic to bask in the topical climes of a rain forest.

That the film clip was a clever piece of computer animation might have been less apparent a joke had the film's presenter not been Terry Jones of fabled comedy group Monty Python.

Flying Penguins - BBC April Fools Hoax - Click here.

* The Whopper may be so big you need two hands to eat it, but for non-ambidextrous customers who were heretofore disadvantaged by having to consume burgers in a right-hand-dominant society Burger King had the answer: The Left-handed Whopper.

In 2008 full page ads and press releases announced the new dining choice for lefties, in which placement of condiments like pickles was rotated 180 degrees, "thereby redistributing the weight of the sandwich so that the bulk of the condiments will skew to the left, thereby reducing the amount of lettuce and other toppings from spilling out the right side of the burger."

* Another left-handed hoax was equally good. Why should right-handers be closer to cleanliness? In 2015, Cottonelle tweeted that it was introducing left-handed toilet paper for all those southpaws out there. The ad even featured a quote from the supposedly respected- and fictional- founder of the “Lefties for the Ethical Treatment of Lefties” organization.

* National Geographic even got in on the fun in 2016. The media company surprised the world when it announced via Twitter that National Geographic would no longer be publishing photographs of naked animals: "The media group says that it will no longer degrade animals by showing photos of them without clothes."

"April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four."

 

-Mark Twain

(Becky Little. “Gotcha! History's Most Outrageous April Fools' Jokes.” https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/150331-april-fools-day-hoax-prank-history-holiday. National Geographic. April 1, 2019

(Todd Leopold. “Some of the greatest April Fools’ pranks of all time.” CNN. April 1, 2019.)

(Larry Holzwarth. “20 of the Best April Fools’ Day Pranks and Hoaxes of All Time.” https://historycollection.com/20-of-the-best-april-fools-day-pranks-and-hoaxes-of-all-time/17/. History Collection. April 1, 2019.)

(“The Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time.” http://hoaxes.org/aprilfool/P30.)

 

"Born to Be Wild" And John Kay -- Let Freedom Rock!

 



Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once and
Explode into space

I like smoke and lightning
Heavy metal thunder
Racin' with the wind
And the feelin' that I'm under
Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once and
Explode into space

Like a true nature's child
We were born, born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never wanna die

Born to be wild
Born to be wild

– "Born to Be Wild" by Steppenwolf (Debut 1968)

In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine placed "Born to Be Wild" at No. 129 on the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. Also in 2004, it finished at No. 29 on AFI's 100 Years … 100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema. In 2009, it was named the 53rd best hard rock song of all time by VH1. In 2018, the song was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a new category for singles.

Everyone has heard “Born to Be Wild.” It has become a rock anthem for freedom and one of the most famous road songs of all time. Some critics even said the song is a generational icon. It has been featured in films and other media productions so many times that its driving beat and lyrics are instantly recognizable.

Juliette Jagger – Canadian writer, music journalist, and editor – says …

“Perhaps the real reason that the song remains at the forefront of our collective consciousness is because a at the height of the counterculture movement of the 1960s, it not only bottled that sense of reckless abandon that tends to define youth, it spoke to something that continues to hold true generation after generation and that’s our own inherent belief that we are all born to be wild.”

(Juliette Jagger. Origin Stories: Mars Bonfire on Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild” https://juliettejagger.com/origin-stories-mars-bonfire-on-steppenwolfs-born-to-be-wild/. 2010.)

However, did you know John Kay – Steppenwolf's famous lead singer and gifted songwriter – did not write “Born to Be Wild”? It was written by Mars Bonfire, the stage name of Dennis Edmonton, who was previously a member of the Sparrows, the predecessor band to Steppenwolf. His brother was Steppenwolf's drummer.

Explaining how he came up with the song, Bonfire said …

"I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard one day and saw a poster in a window saying 'Born to Ride' with a picture of a motorcycle erupting out of the earth like a volcano with all this fire around it. Around this time I had just purchased my first car, a little secondhand Ford Falcon. So all this came together lyrically: the idea of the motorcycle coming out along with the freedom and joy I felt in having my first car and being able to drive myself around whenever I wanted.

“'Born To Be Wild' didn't stand out initially. Even the publishers at Leeds Music didn't take it as the first or second song I gave them. They got it only because I signed as a staff writer. Luckily, it stood out for Steppenwolf. It's like a fluke rather than an achievement, though.'"

(“Born to Be Wild.” Songfacts. https://www.songfacts.com/facts/steppenwolf/born-to-be-wild.)

According to John Kay, "Born To Be Wild" almost never happened. Kay says …

“'Born To Be Wild' was the third single off our first album and the record company argued about which of the tunes that remained from the album, that had not been released to date, should be the next single. So management and band were on one side and the label on the other side had this tug of war and finally the compromise was to put "Born To Be Wild" on one side, put the other song that the record company preferred on the opposite side, send it to radio, and let them fight it out. Well, within a relatively short period of time (early summer of 1968) 9 out of 10 played 'Born To Be Wild.'"

Bonfire remembers hearing the Steppenwolf rendition of his song on the radio for the first time …

“I actually didn’t hear the final version of ‘Born To Be Wild’ until months after it was recorded and released. When I did finally hear it on the radio, I just thought they did a superb job. John Kay really had the right voice for it, and their new guitar player Michael Monarch took the basic guitar riff I had given him on my demo and gave it a totally iconic sound.”

(Juliette Jagger. Origin Stories: Mars Bonfire on Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild” https://juliettejagger.com/origin-stories-mars-bonfire-on-steppenwolfs-born-to-be-wild/. 2010.)

Origins Of Heavy Metal?

They lyrical line "heavy metal thunder" is said to make the tune the first popular song to use the phrase "heavy metal," which became a term for hard rock. William Burroughs is credited with coining that phrase, as he used it in his 1961 novel The Soft Machine, describing his character Uranian Willy as "the Heavy Metal Kid." Burroughs told The Paris Review: "I felt that heavy metal was sort of the ultimate expression of addiction, that there's something actually metallic in addiction, that the final stage reached is not so much vegetable as mineral."

Six years later, the term heavy metal crossed over into music through a classic rock song. Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild,” recorded in 1967 and released in 1968 on their first long-playing record, Steppenwolf, contained the famous lyric: “I like smoke and lightnin’, heavy metal thunder.”

(Richard Havers. “Heavy Metal Thunder: The Origins Of Heavy Metal.” https://www.udiscovermusic.com/in-depth-features/metal-music-heavy-thunder/. March 29, 2022.)

This song can get your motor running, but despite the famous lyric, it's not really heavy metal. "For me, heavy metal music had its beginnings in Led Zeppelin and beyond," John Kay said in a Songfacts interview. "We always considered Steppenwolf to be a hard rock, blues-based band, with some exceptions in terms of the material."

Of course, most people know “Born to Be Wild” was used in the 1969 movie Easy Rider, a counterculture classic starring Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda as bikers who ride from Los Angeles to New Orleans. Another Steppenwolf song, "The Pusher," was also used in the film.

When the movie was in production, this was simply a placeholder, since Fonda wanted Crosby, Stills and Nash to do the soundtrack. However, Fonda’s plan did not pan out for two reasons. The first was that editor Donn Cambern had used his own record collection to avoid boredom while cutting the film (the first edit of Easy Rider was 4 ½ hours long). As a result, various scenes were cut so they fit perfectly with Cambern’s records, but were then difficult to synch with independently-written tracks.

The second reason that CSN did not write the music for Easy Rider was due to a power struggle between producer Fonda and director Hopper. Hopper eventually prevailed, so Easy Rider ended up using existing rock songs. However, it was one of the first movies that made extensive use of rock songs to enhance the film (the first was probably the 1967 The Graduate). Easy Rider featured music by Steppenwolf, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Byrds, Roger McGuinn, and other 60s bands.

(Tim Londergan. “Born To Be Wild: Steppenwolf; appearance in Easy Rider; Blue Oyster Cult.” https://timscoverstory.wordpress.com/2018/09/04/born-to-be-wild-steppenwolf-appearance-in-easy-rider-blue-oyster-cult/. September 4, 2018.)

Partly because of the song's use in Easy Rider, it has become the song most associated with motorcycles, especially Harley Davidsons. The stretched out bike with high handlebars and an over-the-top paint job in the movie is still considered a “quintessentially American folk art form.” That "Captain America" bike, named for its distinctive American flag color scheme and known for its sharply-angled long front end, was partially destroyed in the film's finale, and then rebuilt by actor Dan Haggerty. (The three other bikes used in the production were stolen prior to the film's release.) According to Brian Chanes, acquisitions manager for the auction house, the bike's estimated value is between $1 million and $1.2 million.

(Tom Dreisbach. “Behind The Motorcycles In 'Easy Rider,' A Long-Obscured Story.” NPR. October 11, 2014.) 

 

History Note:

The motorcycles used in Easy Rider were not simply rolled out of a showroom and in front of the camera. They were "choppers," crafted by hand.

Choppers are "a type of customized motorcycle usually defined by a stretched out wheel-base, and pulled back handlebars, and a sissy bar, and a wild paint job," says Paul d'Orleans, the author of The Chopper: The Real Story. "It's a quintessentially American folk art form."

The "Captain America" bike is an unmistakable and legendary chopper, and has made an enormous impact on the world of motorcycling.

The bikes in Easy Rider, d'Orleans says, "did more to popularize choppers around the world than any other film or any other motorcycle. I mean, suddenly people were building choppers in Czechoslovakia, or Russia, or China, or Japan."

Whose hands turned the wrenches? Who welded the steel? Most of the time, d'Orleans says, choppers are associated with their builders, "because they are an artistic creation. And curiously, the Easy Rider bikes were never associated with any particular builder."

John Kay

The amazing story of John Kay, the front-man for Steppenwolf, fits the theme of freedom so well. You might say “Born to Be Wild” is a symbol of Kay's life in that determination and liberty have been a part of his existence from the very beginning. He's been kicking down barriers and beating the odds with complete consistency.

John Kay was born Joachim Fritz Krauledat in 1944 – during Workd War II – in the section of Germany then known as East Prussia. He never knew his father, who was killed fighting in Russia a month before John’s birth.

Within the first year of John’s life, his mother noticed nystagmus, his rhythmic shaking of the eyes and squinting in bright lighting. With no local eye care available, she traveled with her infant son to the nearby town of Erfurt to seek eye care for him. He was provided with prescription eye-wear, but most importantly, the doctor had the lenses tinted to help reduce his aversion to the light. An understanding of achromatopsia in the 1940s was very limited. Being a very rare condition, most eye doctors had probably never been confronted with a case.

His doctor suspected a nutritional cause and suggested that better nutrition might be helpful. In post-war East Germany, food supplies were scarce. His mother had long worried that the strain of losing her husband during the pregnancy and limited food during the war may have caused his vision problems. John’s mother began to realize that fleeing to West Germany where food supplies were more plentiful might offer her son more help with his vision. (Ironically, though achromatopsia is a genetic disease, recent animals studies suggest that antioxidant vitamins may be helpful in achromatopsia.)

When John was less than a year old, he and his mother fled to what would soon become Communist-controlled East Germany. There, John’s mother worked tirelessly as a seamstress to earn money for them and to save enough money to leave East Germany. She was eventually able to pay two guides to get them across the border. When John was four years old, Elsbeth, John and his Aunt Ida crossed the border between East and West Germany.

“'Pack your rucksack Joachim. We’re going on a trip.’ That was all my mother told me the night we escaped from East Germany … We crossed near the Hartz Mountains south of Brunswick and Hannover. I remember seeing search lights moving … As the women passed under the wire, one of our guides took me by the hand and led me through, As I crouched I could hear a commotion, then gunfire, maybe a machine gun burst. Hurry, hurry, hurry just keep running implored our guide.”

(John Kay. Autobiography: Magic Carpet Ride. 1994.)

Passing quickly through a refugee camp, Elsbeth, John, and Aunt Ida traveled to reach family members who had already made it into West Germany. By the end of the year, Elsbeth and John had settled in a small attic room in Hannover, a city on the Leine River in an area of rich farmland. It was during this time that his mother would remarry.

Growing up in Hannover, West Germany, John was profoundly affected by the American rock ‘n’ roll he heard on U.S. Armed Forces Radio. Though he didn’t speak English at the time, the music’s primal energy touched something deep in him, instilling both a driving ideal of personal freedom and an abiding interest in American culture.

That vision became a reality in 1958, when the teenager emigrated with his mother and stepfather to Toronto. There, he immersed himself in the rock, R&B, country and gospel music that emanated from late-night U.S. clear-channel AM stations, while learning English from the speed-rapping DJs who dominated the rock ‘n’ roll airwaves.

(“John Kay: From Rock Star to Elephants, We Were All Born To Be Wild #Steppenwolf to #MaueKayFoundation #VisuallyImpaired.” (Transcript Provided) https://blindabilities.com/?p=3997.)

John found his first exposure to the school system in Canada to be very difficult. The language barrier combined with his vision problems together seem difficult to overcome.

“I would eventually learn the language, though those first few months were difficult. What was insurmountable, however, was again the eyesight problem. Even though I was in the front row, I now had to decipher the hand writing of someone writing in an unusual handwriting style, in a language I didn’t understand, all from a distance I couldn’t see from.”

(John Kay. Autobiography: Magic Carpet Ride. 1994.)

John, however, was not left to flounder in regular classes. He was soon evaluated by a vision consultant to the school system, who recommended Sight Saving classes, which were held at the Deer Elementary School. Sight Saving classes were structured to provide a better environment for those with visual impairments, but not completely blind. These classes were sponsored by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) and are credited by John as an important bridge from his education in Germany to the Canadian Public schools. It allowed him the additional time and vision help he needed to learn English.

But perhaps one of the most important aids John received from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind was a Wollensach reel-to-reel tape recorder. He really was unsure if he needed the Talking Book Program, which is what they were offering it for, but he knew the tape recorder could be used to record music and to record his singing voice.

“She then told me that the CNIB would provide me with a Wollensach reel-to-reel tape recorder to listen to these tapes. Seeing my window of opportunity, I immediately jumped at the offer, not for the taped book but for the tape machine itself. It allowed me (may the RIAA forgive me) to tape songs from the radio and I borrowed records to tape as well.… I also started taping my first attempts at singing in English.”

(John Kay. Autobiography: Magic Carpet Ride. 1994.)

After two years in sight saving classes, John would return to Humberside Collegiate and enroll in the 10th grade. He had lost a year, but the language barrier had been surpassed and he was ready to return. John’s colorblindness became an issue due to an interest in electronics. His complete lack of color vision would block this as a carrier path, but it kept him focused on his goal of music.

This desire to pursue music as a career began to be an obsession. By the summer of 1958, John had bought his first guitar, a $55 Kay guitar at the Simpson-Sears department store in Toronto. Stan King, a friend from Sight Saving class, loaned him a Hank Williams songbook. From this book, he learned to play chords on guitar. And, the rest, as they say, was history.

Live Your Life

Words and Music by John Kay

I was raised in the ruins, mama, 'till I was thirteen
Every day I heard the radio
Every night I had the same old dream
To sing a song, oh, baby, to watch my name in lights
If you wanna see your dream come true
Honeychild, you gotta get right down and fight
Well I sailed cross the ocean, girl, I felt so all alone
Many times I thought about goin' right back home
But the Joy I found in song gave me the will to carry on

Live your life the way you want to
Don't let fools lead you astray
Live you dreams so you hold on to
All you need along the way

I was payin' my dues right here in the land of the free
All the time I learned to sing along
I could not speak and I could barely see
Still all the while I knew where I was at
But the people that believed in me
Lord, I could count them all in seconds flat
Well, someday I would be, I knew it all along
A gentleman of leisure, girl, right or wrong
And though my dream has come and gone
There's plenty more where those came from 

 

Florida Gov. DeSantis Demands "Don't Say Gay!"

“Flanked by Republican lawmakers at a charter school, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law Monday new restrictions on discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in Florida schools, derided by opponents as the 'Don’t Say Gay' bill and one of the most battled-over pieces of legislation this session.”

(John Kennedy. “DeSantis signs into law what critics call the 'Don't Say Gay' bill that will restrict discussions of sexual orientation in schools.” USA TODAY. March 28, 2022.)

“We will make sure that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination,” DeSantis said, in signing the legislation at Classical Preparatory School in Spring Hill, where he was joined by several parents, students and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, whose wife, Anne, founded the school.

The measure drew criticism from the LGBTQ community nationwide, Hollywood and the White House, and even drew walkouts in schools across the state from students concerned about its potential impact.

The bill has even prompted President Joe Biden – who has seldom weighed in on the recent slate of state bills concerning LGBTQ people – to use the bully pulpit of the White House to rebuke the Florida measure and its sponsors. The bill even appears to have caused a rift between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has said he supports the bill but hasn't signed it yet, and Disney CEO Bob Chapek. 

What Is So Objectionable About Talk of Sexual Orientation?

First of all, reread the opening – the words “Republican lawmakers” and “charter school” stick out like a sore thumb. Nationwide, GOP lawmakers have filed nearly two hundred state bills this year that seek to erode protections for transgender and gay youth or to restrict discussion of LGBTQ topics in public schools.

Akin to bans on the teaching of critical race theory, these laws seek to preserve the myth that the story of America is one of inexorable progress and unblemished virtue, and also imply that a great number of people really don’t matter – forbidding the teaching of queer history aims to solidify what remains of society’s moral disapproval of LGBTQ people. This reeks of exclusion and censorship based on centuries of prejudice.

Charter schools are largely supported by conservative Republicans as institutions that siphon off limited state funding meant to be used for the public good. Charters are run by private corporations, but still paid for with taxpayer dollars. Making the rich richer and everyone else poorer seems to be the only Republican ideology these days. GOP politicians have realized they could hit the teachers unions in their wallets and give parents a few more options – all without being attacked as “Bible thumpers.”

Dissecting the Bill

Dana Goldstein of The New York Times breaks down key passages in the bill.

Please read Goldstein's entire article by clicking here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/us/dont-say-gay-bill-florida.html

PDF of bill, click here: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/er/PDF

Goldstein points out the following:

Instruction on gender and sexuality would be constrained in all grades.

Lines 97-101: “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

This is the sentence that has earned the bill the “Don’t Say Gay” nickname. The language is vague and subject to interpretation. The preamble of the bill further muddles matters. It prohibits not only “instruction” around gender identity and sexual orientation, but also “classroom discussion” of these topics.

Does this mean eliminating books with LGBTQ characters? Historical figures? And if that also means “no classroom discussion,” what about teachers who have gay parents? Are they to be silenced?

On first look, the emphasis on the youngest students seems less restrictive; however, all grades in a school are affected by the provision requiring gender and sexuality to be discussed in ways that are “age appropriate or developmentally appropriate.” Parents, school staff and students are likely to clash over what is “appropriate” – controversy will continue.

Schools would be required to notify parents when children receive mental, emotional or physical health services, unless educators believe there is a risk of “abuse, abandonment, or neglect.”

Lines 67-78: In accordance with the rights of parents … adopt procedures for notifying a student’s parent if there is a change in the student’s services or monitoring related to the student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being and the school’s ability to provide a safe and supportive learning environment for the student. The procedures must reinforce the fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding the upbringing and control of their children by requiring school district personnel to encourage a student to discuss issues relating to his or her well-being with his or her parent or to facilitate discussion of the issue with the parent.

This parental-notification requirement appears to apply to any student, regardless of age or circumstances even if the student could be seeking health services for gender issues, sexuality, depression, substance use, a parental divorce or any other challenge.

Let's face the truth – the bill was written largely because activists are worried about how schools respond to students who question their gender identity. They argue that schools should not affirm children who say they are transgender if it means contradicting their parents.

How strictly will schools follow this directive? To the point of every “change” in a student’s health services? This seems impossible, especially as counselors (and other staff members) balance student confidentiality with informing families about student concerns. What if students approach counseling less frequently because of blanket notification?

Parents would have the right to opt their children out of counseling and health services.

Lines 106-109; 114-118: At the beginning of the school year, each school district shall notify parents of each healthcare service offered at their student’s school and the option to withhold consent or decline any specific service. … Before administering a student well-being questionnaire or health screening form to a student in kindergarten through grade 3, the school district must provide the questionnaire or health screening form to the parent and obtain the permission of the parent.

This provision requires schools to create an opt-out procedure for mental and physical health care services, which could include individual counseling or support groups. It takes particular aim at the growing practice of using mental health or social-emotional screening questionnaires, which are intended to determine what students might need.

Some parents may opt out exactly because their child is dealing with a sensitive issue that produces shame or embarrassment, but educators say that may be the moment the child most needs support.

Parents could sue schools for violating the vaguely written bill, and districts would have to cover the costs.

Lines 129-130; 146-151: If a concern is not resolved by the school district, a parent may …. Bring an action against the school district to obtain a declaratory judgment that the school district procedure or practice violates this paragraph and seek injunctive relief. A court may award damages and shall award reasonable attorney fees and court costs to a parent who receives declaratory or injunctive relief.

Accountability? The legislation is clearly “deputizing” parents to control critical race theory – doing things like canceling suspicious events, removing questionable reading material, squashing free speech. What a punitive enforcement mechanism. Do you think some parents of public school students would take advantage at the school's expense? To use a couple of phrases from the old school and Laugh In – “You can bet your sweet bippy. Sock it to 'em.”

Florida would rewrite school counseling standards.

Lines 157-162: By June 30, 2023, the Department of Education shall review and update, as necessary, school counseling frameworks and standards; educator practices and professional conduct principles; and any other student services personnel guidelines, standards, or frameworks in accordance with the requirements of this act.

The state school counseling framework, based on national guidelines and adopted in 2010, is currently being revised, according to Carmen Larson, a counselor in Sarasota County and member of the writing committee. The current framework contains language, borrowed from the American School Counselor Association, stating that students have the right to a counseling program that “advocates for and affirms” diversity in “sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/expression, family type,” and many other identity categories.

The intent of the bill may be to influence the revision to remove this type of affirming language and strengthen parents’ rights. The question is whether new counseling standards would further supersede mainstream professional practices.

(Dana Goldstein. “Opponents Call It the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill. Here’s What It Says.” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/us/dont-say-gay-bill-florida.html. March 18, 2022.)

The Bottom Line

To me, the bill has nothing to do with vindicating parental authority in public schools in Florida. It is all about engaging in political maneuvering. Supporters may say they are merely trying to bar “instruction” of sexual orientation or gender identity, but it also prohibits any “classroom discussion.” Besides, what specifically entails “instruction”?

Consider these questions for a Florida classroom:

* Could a teacher discuss names of victims and instances of anti-LGBTQ violence?

* Will instructional materials will be available to ensure every K-12 classroom has access to accurate and unbiased depictions of the sexual orientation and gender identity of historical figures?

* Can a counselor even address a student with issues of gender or sexual identity?

In my view, schools must be given the authority to talk about how people relate to each other. I think talking about different communities and about bias and discrimination and how they affect people's lives is appropriate. But, unfortunately, Florida lawmakers have decided that's a problem and they need a law to keep instruction, and even discussion, within their self-imposed political and unreasonable limits.

Social pressures are everyday experiences for students in public schools. All school personnel must be both cognizant and responsive to issues like bullying, peer-pressure, and inclusion. These are real threats and obstacles, especially for minorities – racial or social. DeSantis seeks to make LGBTQ students an outgroup by marginalizing their rights on campus. Children struggle enough with their identify without this apparent prejudice.

Not only that, the governor demands teachers join him in limiting students' access to honest, unbiased information about sexual orientation or gender identity. In his mind, teachers must be automatons – pre-programmed and cold robots incapable of dealing with real-life problems and situation with particular details requiring immediate interpretation. No teacher can operate under those restrictions. Imagine the results.

Here is my final thought – the vagueness in the so-called “Don't Say Gay” bill is purposeful deceit. Why doesn't DeSantis just admit that the legislation is about politics and the GOP's seemingly never-ending battles in the culture wars. DeSantis, with his own political power, has forced silence upon Florida schools, denying students acknowledgment of their own sexual and gender identities.

Nadine Smith, Executive Director of Equality Florida, says …

“Governor Ron DeSantis signed the 'Don't Say Gay' bill in the most cowardly way possible today. He hid his agenda from the media and the public until the last moment, skulking onto a charter school campus that is exempt from the law and away from students who would protest his presence.

“He has attacked parents and children in our state by invoking hateful anti-LGBTQ stereotypes all to pander to his right-wing base as he prepares to run for President in 2024. DeSantis has damaged our state's reputation as a welcoming and inclusive place for all families, he has made us a laughing stock and target of national derision. Worse, he has made schools less safe for children. Equality Florida will defend the rights of all students to have a healthy environment to learn and thrive and for all parents to know their families are included and respected. This law will not stand and we will work to see it removed either by the courts as unconstitutional or repealed by the legislature.”

(Delphine Luneau. “BREAKING: Human Rights Campaign, Equality Florida Vow to Fight for Full Repeal of Vile, Dangerous New Law Signed by Florida Governor DeSantis.” Human Rights Campaign. March 28, 2022.)

The Lyric In A Time of War

By Eloise Klein Healy

 for Sappho

Let my music be found wanting

in comparison

to yours (as it must)

let me be found loving

(as you were)

extravagantly the beautiful

let me find you

and the song (forever)

between us

 

in these terrible times

Eloise Klein Healy, “The Lyric In A Time of War” from The Islands Project. Copyright © 2007 by Eloise Klein Healy.

 

Chris Rock And Will Smith -- Staining More Than the Academy Awards

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me.”

– Reported to have appeared in The Christian Recorder of March 1862, a publication of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where it is presented as an "old adage"

“The Academy is speaking out after Will Smith went viral, slapping comedian Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars. The moment came just after Rock had taken a dig at Will's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, saying, "Jada, I love ya. G.I. Jane 2, can't wait to see it." (Pinkett Smith has been open about her struggles with alopecia, an autoimmune disorder which causes bald spots and hair loss.) Moments later, Smith walked onto the stage and gave Rock an open-handed slap to his cheek. Smith then walked offstage and cursed at Rock from his seat, yelling, 'Leave my wife's name out of your f**king mouth.'

“Shortly after, Smith took home his first-ever Oscar for his leading role in King Richard, and took a moment to apologize to The Academy.

"'I want to apologize to the Academy, I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees,' he said during his speech. 'Art imitates life, I look like the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams. Love will make you do crazy things.... Thank you to the Academy, I hope you will have me back.'

“As for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization's official account tweeted following the incident.

"''The Academy does not condone violence of any form,' it wrote. 'Tonight we are delighted to celebrate our 94th Academy Awards winners, who deserve this moment of recognition from their peers and movie lovers around the world.'”

(Rachel McRady‍. “Oscars 2022: The Academy Speaks Out After Will Smith Slaps Chris Rock Live.” https://www.aol.com/oscars-2022-academy-speaks-smith-110632766.html. March 28, 2022.)

As I watched the news report of this story, I was greatly saddened. The media will show this clip over and over. Many people will love it. Some will discuss justification for the affronts. Others will simple shake their heads in disbelief. I'm certain people will look for some kind of message in the outburst. For a couple of weeks, the press will give this unfortunate incident as much attention as the deadly Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The fact is – Nothing is good about what happened between Will Smith and Chris Rock. Negative words – accusatory and threatening – and violence actions – sharp blows and aggressive movements – benefit no one. In particular, Smith lost his temper and chose to respond with a forceful attack. Whether duly provoked or not, he had no right to disrupt the ceremonies and strike Rock. Even if you think Rock was out of line with his comments, you cannot justify such actions.

Smith's public apology was predictable and an effort to save face. No, Will Smith, your actions had nothing to do with “art imitating life.” And, by the way, your public apology did not include any regret for the victim, Chris Rock. Sincere apologies come without conditions, excuses, or limitations. You thought more about your own skin with the Academy than about Rock's bruised cheek. Nothing justifies your actions.

What Does This Incident Teach Us?

Many people love this kind of spiteful interaction: they get a rush of excitement and a good dose of adrenaline watching such behavior. Macho actions manipulate people into seeing violence as permissible and entertaining because of how the victims of violence can be reduced to simplified, opposing foes deserving of retaliation.

You may even find violence has an evolutionary role to defend “territory” – in this case Smith becomes angry and aggressive to defend his mate.

In fact, scientists know that mice and other animals are drawn to fights. A relatively new study, detailed online in the journal Psychopharmacology, reveals the same clusters of brain cells involved in other rewards are also behind the craving for violence.

Study team member Craig Kennedy, professor of special education and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University, reports …

"Aggression occurs among virtually all vertebrates and is necessary to get and keep important resources such as mates, territory and food. We have found that the reward pathway in the brain becomes engaged in response to an aggressive event and that dopamine is involved.

"We learned from these experiments that an individual will intentionally seek out an aggressive encounter solely because they experience a rewarding sensation from it."

(Maria H. Couppis & Craig H. Kennedy. “The rewarding effect of aggression is reduced by nucleus accumbens dopamine receptor antagonism in mice.” Psychopharmacology. 197:449–456. 2008.)

So, are you willing to draw the line between mice and human intellect, or does our curiosity consistently get the best of us? In truth, you and I have become desensitized to violence by the vast exposure of such acts in the modern media. You can come to see violence as acceptable behavior and thus increase your propensity to use such actions in even simple conflicts.

And, here is the MOST unfortunate result of violent incidents between Black males. The mainstream media continues to propagate an image that black males are a growing threat to the safety of the general public.

In 2015, Donald Trump, when he was a candidate for president, tweeted a misleading graphic that claimed that 97% of Black people killed are killed by other Black people, and that 80% of white people killed are killed by Black people.

Fact checkers deemed the tweet as promoting false statistics. The tweet was "quickly revealed as erroneous" according to the Washington Post. From the FBI's Universal Crime Report in 2014; 90% of Black people killed were killed by other Black people and 14.8% of white people killed were killed by Black people.

(Samara Lynn. “'Black-on-Black crime': A loaded and controversial phrase often heard amid calls for police reform.” ABC News. August 01, 2020.)

The phrase “Black-on-Black crime” is not only used by white people but also by some Black people calling out crime in their communities. It's a phrase that has been used by some conservatives to ask why the same activists and community members calling for police reform seemingly, in their view, don't express the same outrage when someone who is Black is killed or injured by another Black person.

Those who use the term say it is an important point in describing the disproportionate amount of crime perpetrated by Black people against other Black people.

However, there are activists and academics who say that "Black-on-Black crime" is an offensive phrase; its origins rooted in America's racist legacy and meant to demean Black people as criminally inclined.

While the first widespread use of the phrase "Black-on-Black crime" can be traced back to the 1970s, the notion that Black people have inherent, collective proclivities to commit crime against others, including other Black people, goes much further back than that, says historian and professor of history, race and public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, Khalil Gibran Muhammad.

"The idea that Black people kill each other is exceptional or something that can only be fixed by Black people is deeply rooted in the white supremacist past," Muhammad told ABC News.

(Samara Lynn. “'Black-on-Black crime': A loaded and controversial phrase often heard amid calls for police reform.” ABC News. August 01, 2020.)

Some also say it is misleading – white people are mainly killed by white people, they say – but there is no conversation about "white-on-white" crime.

And, the Bureau of Justice Statistics' 2019 crime victimization statistics report shows those who commit violent acts tend to commit them against members of the same race as the offender.

Offenders were white in 62% of violent incidents committed against white victims, Black in 70% of incidents committed against Black victims and Hispanic in 45% of incidentscommitted against Hispanic victims, according to the BJS report.

(Rachel E. Morgan, Ph.D., and Barbara A. Oudekerk, Ph.D.,“Criminal Victimization, 2018.” Bureau of Justice Statisticians. September 2019.)

So, the term is meaningless, right? Not so fast. You can be sure to hear the Smith vs. Rock incident in shades of meanings associated with that phrase.

Consider the view of one Black conservative …

"The greatest danger for Black men in America is not a police officer, not somebody in a blue uniform, by any stretch of the imagination – it doesn't even compare. The greatest danger for a Black man in America today is another Black man," said E.W Bishop, an African American minister and lawyer who identifies as a conservative, on his podcast in October 2019.

"A liberal-leaning Democratic-voting socially conservative, older black person will also use the term," said Khalil Gibran Muhammad.

He said many of these older Black Americans use the term "to say, I care about my people, I don't want to see them hurting each other. What should we be doing to help," Muhammad said.

"Black people are committing crimes against themselves or causing harm in the community. There must be something wrong with Black people – that's the conversation unfortunately, that we're still having," said Muhammad. "And that is the racist legacy of the past repeating itself."

Studies show this threatening stereotype of Black men persists …

“Black men tend to be stereotyped as threatening and, as a result, may be disproportionately targeted by police even when unarmed. Here, we found evidence that biased perceptions of young Black men’s physical size may play a role in this process. The results of 7 studies showed that people have a bias to perceive young Black men as bigger (taller, heavier, more muscular) and more physically threatening (stronger, more capable of harm) than young White men. Both bottom-up cues of racial prototypicality and top-down information about race supported these misperceptions.”

(J.P. Wilson, K. Hugenberg, & N.O. Rule. “Racial bias in judgments of physical size and formidability: From size to threat.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(1), 59–80. 2017.)

Closing

Loaded words serve to anger, and violence begets further violence. Even though the public is in a twitter about this moronic behavior – undoubtedly taking sides and defending one or both of the people involved – there is no excuse for the actions, particularly at an assembly of conceivably intelligent adults who – fortunately or unfortunately – serve as model celebrities and influencers of modern society.

Bigots, racists, and other far-right individuals are sure to seize upon the fiasco to further their stereotypes of Black men and “those people's” propensity to violence. The actions mentioned above effectively reduced the Academy Awards to a “bitch fight” between two very prominent Black entertainers. Nothing is gained by this. Instead, it stains the proper acknowledgment of the tremendous work of the industry.

And, the public loves it. Chris Rock and Will Smith, you have a lot of fence-mending to do. Just maybe, we, the public, also need to check ourselves and our reactions to what amounts to another “egged-on fight at school.” The marks on the cheeks will eventually disappear, but the shame is permanent.

“Do you know why people like violence? It is because it feels good. Humans find violence deeply satisfying. But remove the satisfaction, and the act becomes hollow.”

– Alan Turing, father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence.

Ohio Erin's Law and Instruction In Child Sexual Abuse -- Held Up By Center for Christian Virtue

“A bill that would require public school children to have instruction in child sexual abuse in grades K-6 and sexual violence in 7-12 has stalled in the Ohio General Assembly thanks to the culture wars.

“The Center for Christian Virtue wants several changes to the bill, not allowing the promotion of gender-affirming care, a statement about abstinence before marriage, not promoting consensual sex between two teenagers, among other statements.

“Child and victim advocates say these provisions have nothing to do with the bill’s intent and might be harmful for abused children.”

(Laura Hancock. “Culture wars may sink bill in Ohio General Assembly on child sexual abuse prevention instruction.” https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/03/culture-wars-may-sink-bill-on-child-sexual-abuse-prevention-instruction-in-ohio-general-assembly.html. March 23, 2022.)

House Bill 105, also known as Erin’s Law, has been introduced five times in the Ohio General Assembly. This legislative session, the Ohio House passed the bill June 10 by a margin of 86-8. The bill requires school districts, charter schools and science, technology, engineering and math or STEM schools to provide child sexual abuse prevention instruction for grades K-6.

For grades 7-12, schools would have to provide age-appropriate instruction in sexual violence prevention. Schools must also provide counseling and resources for students who have been victims of abuse and violence.

But the Center for Christian Virtue is wading into the bill and has circulated a proposed amendment with several changes to HB 105.

The culture wars? These days, a vocal contingency of parents do not trust their kids’ schools. They say they are concerned about liberal ideologies taught to their kids about the history of American racism, social-emotional learning and sex education. Critics say the new fears over indoctrination are invented and a ploy for the GOP to anger and mobilize voters ahead of the November midterm election.

(Laura Hancock. “Culture wars may sink bill in Ohio General Assembly on child sexual abuse prevention instruction.” https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/03/culture-wars-may-sink-bill-on-child-sexual-abuse-prevention-instruction-in-ohio-general-assembly.html. March 23, 2022.)

House Bill 105

SUMMARY

* Requires each school district, community school, and STEM school to provide annual
age-appropriate instruction in child sexual abuse prevention for grades K-6.

* Requires each school district, community school, and STEM school to include age-
appropriate instruction in sexual violence prevention education for grades 7-12.

* Requires each school district, community school, and STEM school to notify the parents or guardians of students who receive instruction related to dating violence prevention and sexual violence prevention that it is required curriculum and to permit them to examine the instructional materials, upon request.

* Requires the Department of Education to provide on its website links to free curricula
addressing sexual violence prevention to assist schools in developing their curricula.

* Requires each school district, educational service center, community school, and STEM school to incorporate training on child sexual abuse into its required in-service training for teachers and other professionals.

DETAILED ANALYSIS

Instruction in child sexual abuse prevention and sexual violence prevention.

The bill requires school districts, community schools, and STEM schools to provide both (1) annual age-appropriate instruction in child sexual abuse prevention for students in grades K-6 and (2) age-appropriate instruction in sexual violence prevention education for students in grades 7-12. In the case of a school district, instruction in either topic must be part of the district’s general health curriculum.

The bill further provides that instruction in child sexual abuse prevention must include
information on available counseling and resources for children who are sexually abused.

It also requires each school district, community school, and STEM school to notify
parents or guardians of students who receive instruction related to dating violence prevention and sexual violence prevention that it is a required part of the district’s curriculum. The notification must include a statement that, upon request, parents or guardians may examine the instructional materials.

Regarding sexual violence prevention instruction, the bill provides that, if the parent or
legal guardian of a student less than 18 years of age submits to the school’s principal a written request to examine the instruction materials used at that school, the principal, within a “reasonable period of time,” must allow the parent or guardian to examine those materials at that school.

Finally, the bill requires the Department of Education to provide on its website links to
free curricula addressing sexual violence prevention in order to assist schools in developing their own curricula.

In-service staff training in child sexual abuse prevention

The bill requires each school district, educational service center, community school, and
STEM school to incorporate training on child sexual abuse into its required in-service training for teachers, nurses, counselors, school psychologists, and administrators. This training must count toward the satisfaction of requirements for professional development required by the district, service center, or school

(Primary Sponsors: Reps. Lipps and Kelly. Allison Schoeppner, Research Analyst. “H.B. 105: Version: As Passed by the House.” Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Office of Research and Drafting. Legislative Budget. Office. www.lsc.ohio.gov. 134th General Assembly. Access: https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/download?key=17384&format=pdf.)

Namesake

Erin Merryn, is a child sexual abuse survivor from Illinois and is the namesake of Erin's Law. She is a national spokesperson for the National Children's Alliance, becoming the first survivor of child sexual abuse that went through a Children's Advocacy Center to speak on national television about her experience.

Merryn suffered sexual abuse by a male neighbor at ages six to eight and by a teenage cousin at ages 11 to 13. According to her personal account, she told her parents about the latter after her sister confided that she had also been abused by the same relative. The family pressed charges, and the cousin eventually confessed to three counts of child sexual abuse. The case did not go to trial, resulting in the cousin receiving "some counseling, but no punishment.”

(Wendy Cole. "Erin's Law: When the Abuser Is No Stranger.” People Magazine. November 29, 2010.)

Merryn has written two books, about her experience, Stolen Innocence, and Living For Today. She has a master's degree in social work and is working to get Erin's Law passed across America at the state and federal level.

Ohio is a special place for Merryn, she said, since her husband is from the state. She said she wants it passed but does not agree with some of the ideas the Center for Christian Virtue have for her bill.

"Growing up in Illinois public schools every year I was educated with my classmates on tornado drills, fire drills, bus drills, stranger danger, and learned the 8 steps to say "NO" to drugs through D.A.R.E.. As a child I never had to take cover because of a real tornado. I never had to stop, drop, and roll or run out of a burning building. I never had to evacuate a school bus due to an emergency, but I had the knowledge to know what to do if any of those situations happened.

“Where was the drill on how to escape a child molester? Where was the lesson plan on sexual abuse, safe touches, and safe secrets? It never came. I was not educated on 'How to Tell Today or How to Get Away.' I was never educated on 'My Body Belongs to Me.'

“When a grown man lay on top of me at 6 1/2 years old and threaten to tie me to a bed if I did not lay still and be quiet as he raped me or when my teenage cousin locked me behind closed doors and warned me 'this is our little secret, no one will believe you, this will destroy our family' as he sexually abused me on a bed I stayed silent.

“When I was raped and sexually abused as a child I did not know what to do. My body seemed to belong to the men that used and abused it was the message I learned, because I was getting no other message."

– Erin Merryn, https://www.change.org/p/pass-erin-s-law-in-ohio-and-help-keep-children-safe

Need In Ohio

Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia are among the 37 states that have already passed Erin’s Law. Ohio and Kentucky remain outliers regionally in their delay in passing this critical legislation. Curriculum mandated by Erin’s Law has spread throughout the nation since first appearing in schools in 2009.

In Ohio, no existing law requires prevention education for our vulnerable K-12 students. This gap in education is especially concerning when we consider that each year in Ohio, over 30,000 children are involved in a substantiated case of child abuse or neglect; of these, 5,000 are related to sexual abuse specifically.

(Ohio Family Violence Prevention Project.)

The stark reality is that there are far more children suffering sexual abuse in Ohio; only 38% of child victims of sexual abuse disclose (at any point in their lifetime) the sexual
abuse they experience.

(K. London, M. Bruck, S. Ceci & D. Shuman. “Disclosure of child sexual abuse: What does the research tell us about the ways that children tell?” Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11(1), 194-226. 2003.)

This means that over half of child sexual abuse cases go unaddressed. Fear, when combined with a lack of support and education, can prevent children from coming forward to seek help. However, this is a problem that we can, and must, take action to solve together.

Objections

The Christian group's suggestion of having instruction that promotes sexual abstinence until marriage is already in other parts of Ohio law. Ohio’s existing sex education law is clear: When schools provide instruction in venereal disease prevention, they “shall emphasize that abstinence from sexual activity is the only protection that is one hundred per cent effective against unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, and the sexual transmission of a virus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.”

Committee Chair Sen. Andrew Brenner, a Delaware County Republican, hasn’t held a hearing on the bill since Oct. 5. He wants the sponsors and the Center for Christian Virtue to negotiate a compromise.

Among the provisions in the Center for Christian Virtue’s amendment:

• “The bill should stress that students should abstain from sexual activity until after marriage.”

• That “age-appropriate” instruction means no visuals showing couples in sexual situations, children shouldn’t role play scenarios or sexual conversations in the K-6 instruction

• That there be no instruction about consent for grades 7-12.

• No instruction shall imply that healthy relationships for minor children may include consensual sexual activity.”

• Contraception use cannot be demonstrated.

• “No instruction shall incorporate materials from groups advocating abortion, marketing contraceptives or cross-sex hormones, or those advocating or condoning sexual behavior among minor children.”

• “No instruction should advise that any information be withheld from parents, or imply that parents are untrustworthy, or in any way undermine the parent/ child relationship or the primary role of the family. Very few parents are guilty of sexual abuse of children, and to imply in any way that information should be concealed from most or all parents is unjust and deeply harmful to children and the family relationship.”

• No teachers/staff may encourage students to join school-based groups that advocate teen sexual identities and behaviors.

For Lipps and Rep. Brigid Kelly, a Cincinnati Democrat who is also sponsoring the bill, the changes are unacceptable and steer away from the original purpose of Erin’s Law.

“It’s really about trying to prevent kids from being victims, from having to live through a life of trauma,” Kelly said.

Lipps and Kelly recently agreed to a compromise in which parents can choose to opt their children out of receiving the instruction, which is another suggestion from the Center for Christian Virtue expected to soon be amended into the bill. But beyond that, the sponsors aren’t interested in the other provisions the group wants.

Andrew O. Brenner, the chairman of the Senate committee, said in addition to the Center for Christian Virtue, Ohio Value Voters also have concerns with the bill.

“They’re concerned that it is leading to sex ed and promoting a social agenda,” Brenner said. “... There is so much distrust among a large chunk of the electorate over what is going on on these matters in schools -- with the issues around identity, you know students’ identity. They’re concerned that things are going to be taught or promoted that are not along the lines of Erin’s Law.”

Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue, said the amendment in part attempts to prevent Planned Parenthood’s curriculum from making its way into Ohio schools, although Planned Parenthood has not provided testimony on the bill and hasn’t been involved in the drafting of HB 105.

Baer said that his organization wants to continue to work with Lipps and Kelly on the bill to make “sure parents aren’t locked out of this equation, and children aren’t being pushed into more risky behaviors. Then we’ll be in great shape.”

Final Word

It seems to me that abstinence education is already addressed in Ohio law and instruction about sexual abuse prevention should not require abstinence preaching which could be a form of shaming. Victims might blame themselves for their own abuse – a pertinent view of Erin Ostling Burkholder, director of outreach and prevention for Crime Victim Services. Imagine the added psychological harm.

Ostling Burkholder said …

“I think we can still teach an abstinence-only sexual education, curriculum and have a sexual violence, sexual abuse prevention curriculum. Sexual abuse and sex are not the same thing. Rape and sex are completely different. And so to try to say that they are the same or to talk about them in the same way is very harmful. And I think it’s very confusing and misleading, particularly for children.”

(Laura Hancock. “Culture wars may sink bill in Ohio General Assembly on child sexual abuse prevention instruction.” https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/03/culture-wars-may-sink-bill-on-child-sexual-abuse-prevention-instruction-in-ohio-general-assembly.html. March 23, 2022.)

Many precautions have already been addressed. In discussions with the Center for Christian Virtue, Merryn said that her website contains a list of age-appropriate sexual abuse and sexual violence prevention curriculum used in the other states that have Erin’s Law. Examples include “Kid Power,” a curriculum that also includes bullying prevention, abduction and other violence, and “Darkness to Light: End Child Sexual Abuse,” which trains adults in prevention so they can take it to their communities.

And, read this stipulation proposedby the Center for Christian Virtue once more:

* “Very few parents are guilty of sexual abuse of children, and to imply in any way that information should be concealed from most or all parents is unjust and deeply harmful to children and the family relationship.”

* “No teachers/staff may encourage students to join school-based groups that advocate teen sexual identities and behaviors.

Few parents? I would assume that would include guardians – loco parentis? Consider how many children live with close relatives and in foster homes. “Harmful to family relationships”?

Approximately 30% of children who are sexually abused are abused by family members. The younger the victim, the more likely it is that the abuser is a family member. Of those molesting a child under six, 50% were family members. Family members also accounted for 23% of those abusing children ages 12 to 17.

(D. Finkelhor. “Characteristics of crimes against juveniles.” Durham, NH: Crimes against Children Research Center. 2012.)

The existing data suggest that individuals experiencing intra-familial abuse are affected more significantly than those experiencing extra-familial abuse. These instances of abuse were less intrusive (physically) but psychologically they were more intrusive than extra-familial abuse. This justifies the use of different strategies in the diagnosis and support for victims within the family.

(T. Magalhães et. al. “Sexual abuse of children. A comparative study of intra and extra-familial cases.” J Forensic Leg Med. 2009.)

Child sexual abuse is far more prevalent than most people realize. In fact, child sexual abuse is likely the most prevalent health problem children face with the most serious array of consequences. About one in 10 children will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday. About one in seven girls and one in 25 boys will be sexually abused before they turn 18. And, this year, there will be about 400,000* babies born in the U.S. that will become victims of child sexual abuse unless we do something to stop it.

(C. Townsend & A.A. Rheingold. “Estimating a child sexual abuse prevalence rate for practitioners: studies.” 2013. Charleston, S.C. “Darkness to Light.” Retrieved from www.D2L.org.)

And, finally, “no teacher encouraging school-based groups on teen sexual identities and behaviors”? Just who in the hell do these folks believe sponsor and supervise these “school-based groups”? Believe me, such clubs or organizations don't just “pop up” and receive school support without administrative approval. Then the administrators approve faculty to work supplemental contracts that fall within the scope of approved school outcomes.

I'm sure the same Christian folks want Bible Clubs and other Christian observances within school walls. “Encourage” and “permit” are two different words, but I fear the Center For Christian Virtue seeks to stamp out diversity and any trace of alternate gender in their proposed amendment language. Gender (“sexual identity”) and sexual abuse (harm) are two different subjects.

What is most important in this discussion of appropriate instruction to prevent sexual abuse? The child. Period. “Consent,” “contraception,” and “sexual identity” are subjects that every child will eventually explore – you can debate the means of the exploration ad infinitum. Parents want and deserve much input, but my own personal experience is that they do very little – the most minimal amount – of sexual instruction with their own children. We should break the old taboos and use clinical research to help guide us with proper education to save the minds, the bodies, and the lives of Ohio children.