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Monday, February 20, 2012

Here we go again: House members join Senator Fillingane in trying to define "person" in the state constitution

Apparently some members of the House are looking to anger the voters of Mississippi.  HCR 61 has been introduced and assigned to the Constitution committee, which is chaired by Rep. Scott DeLano (R - Biloxi).  HCR 61 is another attempt to force the Personhood issue through the Legislature when the people of Mississippi clearly don't want it.

HCR 61 was authored by Rep. Andy Gipson (R - Braxton).  Its co-authors are all freshman legislators: Rep. Tracy Arnold (R - Booneville), Rep. Chris Brown (R - Aberdeen), and Rep. Tom Miles (D - Forest).

  • Rep. DeLano's district voted Personhood down 65.9%-34.1%
  • Rep. Miles's district voted Personhood down 55.9%-44.1%
  • Rep. Gipson's district voted Personhood down 51.9%-48.1%

State Sen. Joey Fillingane authored similar legislation in the Senate.

1 comment:

  1. Mark BelenchiaFebruary 20, 2012 at 4:29 PM

    I think this is getting out of hand. These folks have an agenda and are slinging everything they can on the wall trying to get something to stick! They got HB 16 passed and on to the Senate. We haven’t got to the bottom of what that bill is really about. It is my opinion that it is treacherous to mix child abuse (after birth) issues with abortion. Whether we like it or not abortion is legal in this country. Tying child abuse (after birth) legislation to a legislative bill trying to restrict abortion dilutes child (after birth) protection efforts. Scapegoating child protection (after birth) to get the laws changed concerning abortion is strictly a political tactic. There are some legislators riding the wave of the ‘Penn State’ catastrophe to push their agenda. Speaker of the House Philip Gunn is a great example; he has authored the recently passed House Bill 16, The Child Protection Act of 2012. It starts out with the issue of child protection (after birth) then quickly shifts to restricting abortion. Yet, in his role as a church elder at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton, he chose not to talk with authorities about what he knew about John Langworthy. Langworhty is a former music minister at MHBC, who is awaiting trial for (after birth) sex crimes against children. Nor did he, Gunn, follow reporting laws that are already on the books. Gunn was a strong proponent of the Personhood Amendment that failed in Mississippi in the November 2011 election. As an advocate for child victims of sexual abuse (after birth) and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse (after birth) I am left to wonder what is really going on here. Don’t distort things by mixing these two explosive issues. Childhood sexual abuse (after birth) is ’soul murder’. It cuts an unjust ‘groove’ in a child’s brain that they will have to deal with for the rest of their life if they in fact are able to make a life. It, childhood sexual abuse (after birth), should be dealt with as its own issue.

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