This past week the most prominent teachers' unions made it painfully obvious, they are on the side of the sex offender, rapist, and murderer who has been convicted.
They are not now (and pretty much never have been) on the side of your child.
They claim to represent the interests of teachers. Yet I am hard pressed to find an average teacher who feels like the unions have done pretty much anything for them. The average teacher just feels the pinch when the union bosses take the dues from their paychecks and threaten any who dare to "get out of line."
Yet nary a teacher that could be found this week could take any pride from the unions' latest actions.
This week--in atypical overwhelming bi-partisan unity--the House of Representatives passed a measure that would allow schools to require teachers, coaches, and janitors to be subject to criminal background checks. The measure would allow the school to deny employment to any who had been convicted (not *suspected, indicted, or accused--but convicted) of past felonies. The measure would also allow the school to take a pass on any previously convicted sex-offender. The measure will now head to the Senate.
If the Senate cares about the welfare of children they will pass the measure forthwith.
The problem is--they may not care about the kids.
The Senate is majority Democrat in party affiliation, and Democrat candidates rely heavily upon huge disproportionate contributions to their campaign funds from the unions to get re-elected. So now Majority Leader Harry Reid is being lobbied hard by the teachers' unions to kill the bill, or direct fellow Democrats to vote it to defeat. You can encourage Reid to ignore them by calling his office at 202.224.3121.
But why would the unions representing the teachers of America (who I believe universally support the measure-sans any hidden criminals amongst their ranks) wish to pair up child rapists with children?
My hunch says: They just don't believe anybody cares.
And why should they? This week a movie theater in New York defied the law, and good common sense to openly invite children under the age of 17 to come and see an "artistic" graphic film that depicts intense scenes of nothing-to-the-imagination lesbian sex that runs nearly 3 hours in length. They went so far as to publicly announce that they would not ban under-agers from seeing the film. When writing about it for the New York Times, cultural reporter A. O. Scott more or less admitted to actions that would have had him arrested as a sex offender forty years ago, saying he had proudly encouraged his daughter of 14 to see the film... Twice... No doubt a generation ago, had he taken his own daughter of 14 to a peep show he would've been listed as a sex offender. The irony of this fact--completely lost on Scott--didn't prevent him from bragging about his "permissive" nature in his column... in the New York Times... admitting his own moral laxity.
Add to this the fact that in more than one case against teachers who have raped their own students, the teachers' unions have come to the defense of--not the child but rather the--teacher in recent months with not an overtly noted outcry from the public and you begin to realize something is desperately amiss.
While our society at one time thought more clearly about sexual activity, sexual content, and sexual contact between children, children and adults, and children and teachers, we don't seem to any more.
In other words the lessening of our sexual mores have led to a genuine shift in what is safe, decent, and good for children.
The grand bet that is being waged is that the teachers' unions can lean on the Majority Leader hard enough to kill the legislation (never bring it up for a vote) and that the average parent will never care.
This is the case only because we are a society that in some measure has stopped thinking for ourselves and instead placed our trust in the "smart people" (you know... the kind that run teachers' unions and talk about sexual prudishness of people of faith at wine and cheese parties in New York and DC) to make the decisions for them.
The question as it rests with you now is...
Are they right?