jon@dmcityview.com

Dildo law, other legislative parenting needs to stop

Rep. Dawn Pettengill may have been too busy browsing for dildos and missed the Dec. 29 cover story in this publication that Carolyn Szczepanski and I co-authored titled "Pigheaded," but the gist of the message was this: "There are so many important things to accomplish this legislative session, that, for once, lawmakers need to stay focused." Carolyn and I even prepared a short list. Oddly enough, making the "I Rub My Penguin" personal waterproof massager illegal for children to purchase, as Pettengill has proposed, was not on it. Nor was our insistence that state leaders play parent whenever they discover something that, ahem, rubs them the wrong way.

A few weeks back it was pushing something called Nick's Law, which would keep our younger drivers from operating a vehicle with more than one passenger, as well as keep them from using cell phones while driving. Nick Bisignano, for whom the proposed law is named, only had one passenger in his car and, to my knowledge, wasn't using a cell phone when he jumped a curb and wrapped his car around a tree. He had been drinking - the same as Larry Washburn, the 18-year-old who blew through a stop sign at 31st and Cottage Grove doing 80 mph and killed my mother 25 years ago.

But drunk driving is already illegal, so in order to grab a few headlines, lawmakers had to choose to push something that wasn't already against the law. They had to play concerned parents, so the cell phone and single-passenger proposals were introduced. Obviously, the judgment of mom and dad should dictate what is and what is not prudent when it comes to raising youth in a suitable fashion within the law, not over-anxious, ego-driven legislators, but that doesn't seem to be stopping them from trying to stick their noses in your business, now does it?

Rep. Janet Petersen hasn't given her position when it comes to vibrators (most women only have them to relieve tension in their necks), but she'll be damned if she's going to let your kid play the video game Grand Theft Auto. What's that? She can't stop your kid from playing Grand Theft Auto? Well then she'll be damned if she's going to let your kid buy or rent Grand Theft Auto. Never mind that your kid, if resourceful enough, will play it anyway, and that Petersen's law is the equivalent of saying it's OK for kids to possess meth, it's just not OK to buy it, like Pettengill, she thinks it's best for Iowa lawmakers - the same group that cares so much for our children that they have let our schools fall into disrepair, pay our educators next to nothing and can't be bothered with a Department of Human Services that has left its fair share of little ones on the slab - to mandate what's best when it comes to raising them.

Just ask Sen. Jeff Angelo. Angelo, a Dairy Queen employee (in the not-so-distant past) who has astonishingly risen through the ranks of the state Senate to the point where people actually listen when he insists that, regardless of the U.S. Constitution, libraries need to block access to pornography on their computers.

"Parents shouldn't have to worry whether their child is going to be exposed to something obscene or harmful at the public library," Angelo said last week. The proposed bill would also restrict the access of R-rated movies to those under the age of 17.

Angelo, some might reason, should ensure fewer kids end up schlepping Blizzards by ponying up more for education, but then, of course, he wouldn't be able to sit on his high horse and snipe, wouldn't be able to do your job for you. Disregard that some R-rated movies have value for kids younger than 17, libraries are for everyone (and many of them already make certain that kids can't look at porn by sectioning off where kids can be), your 16-year-old babysitter may need to use a cell phone while driving, carpooling with more than just two teens makes economical sense and that kids will think about sex whether they can buy dildos or not, the true question regarding all this off-putting jibber-jabber is this: "Isn't it up to you to decide?"

Perhaps your child goes overboard with his or her vibrator, gets hit with astronomical overages when out tooling around, is easily distracted by backseat drivers, dry humps pillows, knocks around the kid brother and sets the cat on fire after playing Grand Theft Auto and foams at the mouth at the idea of sitting down for "Schindler's List," and you need to tell your child that he or she cannot partake in those things. But what if your child is among the respectful and responsible? Should laws that would otherwise be covered by parental common sense hamper him or her? And do you want individuals like Pettengill, Petersen and Angelo telling you how to raise your kid just because they had an itch that needed scratching?

I, for one, do not.

Lawmakers have a job to do each and every session, a tough job, and the serious ones are those who are able to toil successfully without searching for the spotlight or taking any type of moral high ground. What works at Angelo's house may not work at mine, and individual viewpoints formed after stumbling upon something personally troubling should be spoken about around the dinner table - not proposed to the masses as necessary legislation while acting as a concerned parent.

So, tick tock, state leaders. That sound you hear is your vibrator's battery running low. We have very little time remaining to get some satisfaction. Please, press on. You won't ever get there if you're distracted. CV

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