LIA/R: No Child Abuse Here
Today I had supervision, and I mentioned the LIA/R situation to my supervisor. She said, "Yeah, I saw a little something on the news, but I couldn’t tell what was going on." Yeah, there was about one minute of coverage on the news last night. It was so fast that I heard them say Love in Action, turned away from my computer, and I barely got a glimpse of the scene. Anyway, back at work, another guy pops his head in and asks about the situation. He says that he was watching the news, and for about half an hour they were talking about an upcoming piece about LIA/R, but then the piece was so brief that he couldn’t figure out what it was all about! He’s right. If you blinked, you missed it. This guy said, "Now I thought we’d already decided that when people are born gay, you can’t change that." Hilarious. I mean, YES! "We" (as in psychologists) HAVE worked that out. What a tricky situation this is.
EJ reported on his blog that after the investigation, there was no allegation of child abuse against Zach. I’m not surprised. Child abuse is triaged, and mental abuse comes after physical abuse, sexual abuse, and severe neglect. It’s sad that Zach can’t be protected using this route, but I wasn’t surprised about the outcome, not at all. I found a few links that may help explain abuse. Althought I found some information about mental abuse in the printed material from the Memphis Child Advocacy Center, I didn’t find any information about it on their web site.
Comment by Peterson
June 29, 2005 @ 9:05 am
Abby, having talked with a dear friend in Memphis who is an advocate for students with disabilities, I am not surprised either that no charges were brought against LIA.
Bottom line: Children do not have rights.
What they are doing in LIA to Zach and others may not be “illegal” but that does not mean it is not immoral.
This story is only just getting out to mainstream America, and when they hear it, they will be pissed! (They BETTER be)