Hawaii legalizes child abuse

It's been a good year for dominionist wingnuts who think children are their property to batter. In the spring, the Minnesota Supreme Court legalized the merciless beating of children.

Now the Hawaii Supreme Court has followed suit.

The Hawaii verdict is a bad ruling. And it's unmistakably an activist one. The unanimous decision reverses the abuse conviction of a man who ruthlessly kicked and slapped his girlfriend's teenage son because he didn't grate cheese properly.

Someone with the state's Public Defender's Office praised the ruling, saying, "If you don't have control of your child, and the child cannot listen to authority in a family home, imagine what could happen outside the home." Statements like this conjure up terrifying images of abusive adults.

The Hawaii Supreme Court has a track record of siding with abusers. Last year, it overturned the conviction of a woman who severely assaulted her teenage daughter with a variety of implements for bringing home bad grades.

So yet another state has become a safe haven for child abusers. Now the abusers don't even have to be hired as school principals to be able to get away with it.

(Source: http://starbulletin.com/2008/09/14/news/story01.html)