Recent editorials from Alabama newspapers:
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April 5
TimesDaily on laws that try to fix bad decisions:
Alabama residents are, according to a recent survey, among the most religious people in the nation.
In a Pew survey released in February, 77 percent of Alabamians said religion is important in their lives (first place), 51 percent said they attend worship services at least weekly (second place), 73 percent said they pray daily (second place), and 82 percent said they believe in God with absolute certainty (first place).
Given that, you wouldn’t think Alabama should have so much trouble with the basics of morality. Certainly, most Alabamians seem to favor posting the Ten Commandments in public places, even when the courts say doing so is unconstitutional.
Yet the state’s lawmakers think we do have trouble with the basics. Both Rep. Mack Butler and Sen. Cam Ward have introduced bills to require that teachers receive annual training so they’ll know it’s improper for teachers to have sexual relationships with students.
Butler, who served two terms on the Etowah County school board, said he saw firsthand cases of teachers having sexual relationships with students. One purpose of his bill is to remind teachers that not only should they not have romantic relations with students, they’re also obliged to report to administrators if they know of other school employees who are.
In the past month, the state has seen six cases of teachers, teacher’s aides and coaching assistants allegedly getting caught having inappropriate sexual relations with students. The count so far is one teacher in Decatur, two assistant coaches at East Limestone, an aide at Falkville High, and husband and wife teachers caught separately at a private school in Pickens County. And in February, a school nurse at Florence High School was arrested for the same thing.
No one thinks these teachers, if they’re indeed guilty, thought what they were doing was OK, and few probably believe a state-mandated reminder every year will fix the problem. But government at every level is more adept at looking like it’s doing something to address an issue than actually addressing it.
Teachers having sexual relations with students already is a serious crime in Alabama, one that can lead to any offending teacher being branded a sex offender even if the student was old enough to consent.
The penalty should be deterrence enough.
Government can’t really legislate sexual morality. It certainly can’t legislate away making bad decisions, even when one knows that’s what they’re doing.
We need look no further than Gov. Robert Bentley as an example of someone knowingly making bad decisions. At a minimum, he is guilty of - as Jimmy Carter said while first running for president - lusting in his heart.
Laws are no substitute for self-discipline. Refresher seminars are no stand-in for the classical virtue of prudence. And some leaders, wary of the mote in others’ eyes, are oblivious to the beams in their own.
If there is a moral crisis in Alabama, it certainly doesn’t stem from ignorance of right and wrong. Stubbornness is the more likely culprit.
Online:
https://www.timesdaily.com/
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March 31
The Gadsden Times on calling for Gov. Bentley’s resignation:
Closing your eyes, putting your hands over your ears and humming loudly is a common response when someone wants to blot out something unpleasant.
That strategy never works, because the actions ultimately get boring, the hands, eyes and vocal chords eventually get tired - and reality never goes away.
Gov. Robert Bentley needs to heed that lesson, instead of humming away while his embattled administration keeps imploding a little more as each day passes.
We called for Bentley’s resignation last week, a few days after he admitted to making inappropriate remarks to his now former chief adviser, Rebekah Caldwell Mason.
He did so after Spencer Collier, within hours after Bentley fired him as head of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, called a press conference and accused the governor of carrying on an affair with Mason (something Bentley denies).
Before the room emptied at Collier’s meeting, state media outlets were releasing first transcripts, then actual audio of Bentley’s side of conversations with Mason.
Barry White song intros, they aren’t, but they’ve made this both a national news story and grist for message board posters, snark merchants like Gawker and stand-up comedians happy to get more material from Alabama.
It’s not ebbing a bit, as new reports are being released practically every day by conventional media sources and on websites and blogs.
We doubt Mason’s resignation Wednesday will change that. There’s so much chum in the water in Montgomery right now, the largest school of sharks ever seen on the planet couldn’t eat it all.
The state Ethics Commission will investigate whether Bentley and Mason have violated any laws. Media outlets have reported that other federal and state investigations are under way.
Those things need to happen, again even though Mason has left the scene. As easy as it is to laugh at an old man’s clumsy attempts at risque talk with somebody young enough to be his daughter, that’s not a secular crime. What’s relevant is a complete accounting and documentation of the circumstances of Mason’s employment and compensation since she began working off the state books for a nonprofit set up with Bentley campaign money.
Bentley, however, keeps talking about moving forward, like all this will blow over. In an interview with the New York Times - it’s telling that he didn’t choose an in-state media outlet - he reiterated that he won’t resign and will “try to work through all the difficulties that we’re going through.”
He blasted the “errors and misconceptions and opinions” being spread on social media, said his conduct wasn’t “all that egregious” and insisted that once he has a chance to tell the full, unfiltered story away from a “firing squad” press conference setting (his description of last week’s events), he’ll come out of this in a better light.
Naivete, thy name is Robert Bentley.
Meanwhile, the Legislature returns Tuesday with much to be done - including one member’s promise to begin impeachment proceedings against Bentley. That’s unlikely to succeed and we don’t think it should. Absent an investigation and finding of actual wrongdoing, it would come across as impeaching the governor for crude talk, which is an awful precedent.
That doesn’t change the fact that Bentley’s position is untenable and probably not survivable politically.
What clout he had with the Legislature is gone for good. He may be the face of the state, but his profile is permanently stained.
Again, he needs to go.
Online:
https://www.gadsdentimes.com
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April 1
The Montgomery Advertiser on the Alabama Heritage Preservation Act:
Sen. Gerald Allen misnamed his proposed Alabama Heritage Preservation Act. It should be called the Alabama Hatred Preservation Act.
The bill would make it harder for localities to remove historical monuments on public property. As in monuments honoring the Confederacy.
Or to remove, rename or alter statues, memorials or plaques on public property. As in statues, memorials or plaques honoring the Confederacy.
Or to rename schools, streets, bridges, buildings and parks on public property. As in names of streets, bridges, buildings or parks honoring the Confederacy.
The bill sets up a convoluted, expensive system for municipalities that might wish to remove a Robert E. Lee statue or rename a majority-black high school named for Jefferson Davis.
They would have to petition a legislative committee, hold two months of public hearings and buy newspaper ads to inform area residents of a proposed change. After all that, the committee could simply turn down a city’s request.
If that sounds like a bizarre ploy from a conservative Republican for more big government overreach into what should fall under local control, it is.
Allen coyly claims the bill’s intent isn’t to protect Confederate emblems, but rather to prevent a “whitewash” of history and “protect the historic value of America.”
That’s bogus. The impetus for this bill is a bigoted reaction to the groundswell of approval for removal of offensive Confederate symbols that came after Dylann Roof allegedly murdered nine black people in a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015.
Pictures of Roof posing with the Confederate battle flag and other symbols of hate surfaced. Some states and cities began taking down flags on public property, including Gov. Robert Bentley.
But even an obvious attempt to protect Confederate symbols isn’t enough for Allen. Under his bill, cities who remove them without permission from the legislative committee would be fined $100,000 for each violation.
Seriously? He wants to snatch that chunk of change from Alabama’s cash-strapped localities, making it harder from them to do critical things like repair roads, put police officers on the streets, aid the sick and feed the hungry? In order to preserve monuments that glorify hatred?
How nauseating.
The Southern Poverty Law Center strongly opposes Allen’s bill. SPLC President Richard Cohen has this to say: “As a state, we should not honor the Confederacy because it was formed to preserve slavery, a monstrous institution.”
We agree. We also applaud the SPLC for its initiative after the Charleston massacre to catalogue and map Confederate place names and symbols in public spaces around the nation.
Excluding some 2,600 symbols that are largely historical, the nonprofit identified 1,164 emblems, many of them in the South. In a report to be released this month, the SPLC rightly contends that efforts to take down markers honoring the Confederacy “aren’t about erasing history. Rather, they’re about understanding history. It’s about getting history right - about putting historical artifacts in their proper place.”
We recommend Allen read the report and withdraw his shameful bill. Alabama should move toward the day when it no longer publicly reveres white supremacy and the institution of slavery, not pander to the worst of its historical legacy.
Online:
https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/
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