Scotland backs spanking ban

Scotland plans to ban spanking, or “smacking” as Scots commonly call it. The country’s government confirmed last week it would back a bill introduced by Scottish Parliament member John Finnie that criminalizes physical punishment of a child. If passed, Scotland would be the first member of the United Kingdom to ban spanking.

Scotland previously allowed a defense of “justifiable assault” in cases of physical punishment of children. The bill would remove that defense. Parents could face fines or jail time for spanking.

Opponents of the law called the decision a U-turn by Scottish government officials who said months ago they would not back an attempt to ban spanking.

The Scottish government seems to have an issue trusting Scottish parents, said Ciarán Kelly, deputy director for staff and communications for U.K.-based The Christian Institute, also noting a recent call for each Scottish child to have a government-appointed guardian. Kelly said the government was making these decisions “in the face of overwhelming public opposition.”

Be Reasonable Scotland argued the law was a “mass criminalization of ordinary parenting.” The group cited a recent poll that found 3 in 4 Scots agreed a ban would likely criminalize reasonable parents and do little to stop bad parents from abusing their children. Child welfare experts worry the law runs the risk of overwhelming the system with trivial cases, expending resources needed to fight true instances of child abuse.

A pro-family group in New Zealand—which criminalized spanking in 2007—released a warning to Scotland.

“The law has had a chilling effect on parenting, and rather than tackling rotten parents who are abusing their children, it has targeted well-functioning parents,” said Bob McCoskrie, the national director of Family First New Zealand. “We would warn Scottish parents that this law will harm and rip apart families.”

In 2009, 87 percent of New Zealanders voted against the ban in a nonbinding referendum, but the law remains in force.

Professor ostracized for views on transgender ideology

An Idaho professor who wrote an article challenging transgender ideology is facing increasing calls for his termination. Scott Yenor, a tenured professor of political science at Boise State University, wrote for The Daily Signal on Aug. 2 that transgender activists undermine parental rights by pushing laws that bar parents from challenging the sexual and gender preferences of their children.

The article was posted to the Boise State Facebook page, and opponents—faculty, staff, students, and activists—called the article “hate speech” and “bigoted, homophobic, and misogynistic.” An online petition calling for Yenor’s firing said he promoted “an ideology of violence.”

Boise State Dean Corey Cook released a statement defending Yenor’s right to publish but also accusing him of using language inconsistent with the university’s core values of “collegiality, caring, tolerance, civility, and respect.” The school’s director of diversity and inclusion, Francisco Salinas, went one step further, linking Yenor’s piece to the Charlottesville, Va., white supremacists rally in a post on the university website.

“Not every person who agrees with Yenor’s piece is likely to become an espoused neo-Nazi, but likely every neo-Nazi would agree with the substance of Yenor’s piece,” wrote Salinas.

Yenor told The Daily Signal the personal attacks don’t bother him, but what is troubling instead is the undermining of a basic tenant of academia: The idea that “debate has to start with an understanding of what the other person is arguing.”

“It strikes me that there has really been, first of all, no effort to first understand what I’m arguing and second of all, to get anywhere beyond name-calling and labeling,” Yenor said. —K.C.

An awkward phrase?

The U.K. government on Sunday took heat for reportedly objecting to the phrase “pregnant women” in a UN treaty, preferring instead the term “pregnant people.”

The Sunday Times of London said the Foreign and Commonwealth Office expressed opposition to the use of the phrase in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that the death penalty cannot be carried out on “pregnant women.”

“Nobody in government is objecting to the term ‘pregnant woman,’” Prime Minister Theresa May’s official spokesman told journalists Monday. The Foreign Office was simply “seeking a UN recognition that transgender people can be pregnant.”

An editorial by Brendan O’Neill in The Spectator blasted the clarification: “Sorry, but when the seat of power must make clear to the populace that it is okay to say ‘pregnant women’, you know the plot has been lost; you know common sense, the very tool of language itself, is in crisis.” —K.C.

Call to arms

A group of LGBT activists in upstate New York say they are taking up arms in the face of threats by neo-Nazis and white supremacists. The Trigger Warnings Queer & Trans Gun Club began meeting this past year in Rochester, N.Y., to teach LGBT individuals how to use guns for self-defense. The movement is growing: There is another Trigger Warning chapter in Atlanta, along with inquiries to form chapters in 10 other cities. A similar group, the Pittsburgh-based Pink Pistols, said its membership had jumped in the last year. —K.C.

Moving day

An uncomfortably pregnant Utah mom had a judge issue her unborn baby an eviction notice, and it worked. Kaylee Bays’ daughter was born 12 hours after Judge Lynn Davis jokingly signed an eviction notice giving her baby three days to “vacate the premises.” Bays works as a judicial assistant at the 4th District Court in Provo, Utah. The notice was addressed to the baby, named Gretsel, at Mommy Belly Lane, in Womb, Utah. Davis said it was his first eviction notice for a baby in his 31 years as a judge. —K.C.