Looking Back •

A6
kpcnews.com
Looking Back
•
100 years ago
• With the help of
a government hog
cholera expert, it
is hoped to keep
that loathsome and
fatal disease out
of the Haw Patch
this year. A report
received by the The
Ligonier Banner
this week indicates
that a specially
selected expert from
the department of
agriculture will be in
this vicinity during
the next few days
and will spend some
time investigating the
situation and advising
the farmers and
veterinarians as to
the proper measure
to stamp out and
keep out the disease
from the swine herds.
The condition of the
hogs in this vicinity is
good and it is hoped
that they may be kept
so this year.
The News Sun
25 years ago
• The St. Jude
Children’s Hospital
Wheels for Life
Bike-a-thon was held
at East Noble High
School. A total of
$1,245 collected.
Top earners were
Ben McCormick,
Sarah Papaik,
Megan Sanders,
Aaron Sanders, Seth
Fritz, Mike Prater,
Michelle Manger,
Chris Nickles, Elaine
Lewis, Laura Bassett,
Angela Bassett,
Deb Couture, Sarah
Sparks, Tim Keyes,
Scott Vorndran,
Corey Cooper, Chad
Cooper, Jacqueline
Tayler, Kara Taylor,
Darrin Taylor, Donald
Taylor, Jonathan
Rose, Tina Rose,
Jeremy Handshoe,
Sarah McCue, Jeremy
Caudill, Sean Caudill
and David Manger.
Letters
•
All letters must be
submitted with the
author’s signature,
address and daytime
telephone number.
We reserve the right
to reject or edit letters
on the basis of libel,
poor taste or repetition.
Mail letters to:
The News Sun
102 N. Main St.
P.O. Box 39
Kendallville, IN 46755
Email: brochford@
kpcmedia.com
The Star
118 W. Ninth St.
Auburn, IN 46706
Email: dkurtz@
kpcmedia.com
The Herald
Republican
45 S. Public Square
Angola, IN 46703
Email: mmarturello@
kpcmedia.com
The News Sun
Established 1859,
daily since 1911
The
Star
Established 1871,
daily since 1913
Herald
Republican
the
Established 1857,
daily since 2001
President/Publisher
Terry Housholder
[email protected]
Executive editor
Dave Kurtz
[email protected]
the news sun
The
Star
The Herald Republican
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Our View
•
Help children
have hope
“With liberty and justice for all.”
As a school principal in Texas, Katherine Reddick repeats the Pledge of Allegiance at
school daily.
But as a woman who grew up in the foster care system, she knows tens of thousands of
children are growing up abused, neglected, without justice and without hope.
Speaking at the Kendallville Public Library June 26 Reddick called for effective
interventions and processes to identify victims and perpetrators of child abuse and better
oversight, screening and support for foster parents.
Last year her scathing obituary on the death of her mother propelled her to national
prominence as a speaker. (See related story elsewhere in today’s paper.)
Beginning as infants, she and her seven siblings were abused and neglected at the hands
of their parents and those who were supposed to protect them.
She advocates for serving the spiritual, emotional and educational needs of foster
children and preparing foster children with an effective “exit plan” for when they leave the
system.
An example of the need for better support for
foster
is the lawsuit that has been filed
Let’s couple our resolve to combat againstparents
the Indiana Department of Child Services
child abuse and neglect with by Debra Moss, an adoptive parent who is suing
over unpaid adoption subsidies.
efforts to enable all children to theADCS
June 30 article in The Indianapolis Star
said Moss’ lawsuit claims DCS denied payment
have job skills and hope.
to more than 1,400 Indiana families that have
adopted special needs children from the state’s
foster care system.
DCS promised in a contract to pay adoption
subsidies to those families “if funding becomes
available,” according to the lawsuit. Yet, since
2009, DCS returned more than $238.6 million to
state coffers while not paying subsidies to families that have adopted.
“We need you. We have to change the way the system works,” said Reddick.
Let’s couple our resolve to combat child abuse and neglect with efforts to enable all
children to have job skills and hope.
Liberty and justice for all. That is what we want for our children.
Report child abuse, neglect
In Indiana any adult who believes that a child has been abused or neglected is required
to immediately call Child Protective Services or law enforcement. Individuals who report
suspected abuse or neglect may remain anonymous and are immune from civil and criminal
liability if they have made the report in good faith.
The 24/7 CPS hotline is 1-800-800-5556.
The 2013 Indiana Youth Institute Data Book states that in Indiana in 2012, there were
14,802 substantiated child neglect cases, 3,214 substantiated child sexual abuse cases and
1,992 substantiated child physical abuse cases. (iyi.org/databook)
Signs and symptoms of abuse are unexplained bruises, welts, burns, lumps, bumps,
fractures, lacerations, abrasions, hemorrhages, burns by cigarettes or dental/oral injuries.
Behavior that may indicate abuse includes being too eager to please, depression, low
self-esteem, behavioral extremes, role reversal or exaggerated startle responses. Other
indicators are a child who appears frightened of his or her caretaker, school absenteeism or
if the child verbally reports abuse.
We thank the court appointed special advocates (CASA volunteers) who receive special
training to serve as advocates for these children. For more information about CASA visit
neincasa.net.
Volunteering through the arts is another way to help children suffering from abuse and/
or neglect. Three Rivers Arts Center for Kids (TRACK) was the sponsor of Katherine
Reddick’s visit to northeast Indiana.
For more information about TRACK, contact Terry Doran, founder, at 338-2807 or
email [email protected].
•
OUR VIEW is written on a rotating basis by Grace Housholder, Dave Kurtz, Matt Getts and Michael
Marturello. Publisher Terry Housholder is also a member of the editorial board. We welcome readers’
comments.
Letter
•
Revenue losses are culprit in DeKalb County
To the editor:
Over the last 14 months the DeKalb County Council
and Commissioners have worked using rainy day,
riverboat and CEDIT funds to bridge the budget gap of
2013.
This structural budget deficit continues and must be
addressed. In the last two calendar years, the DeKalb
County general fund has spent an additional $2.7
million.
Increased costs such as communications and public
safety, along with decreases in income tax revenue and
property tax revenue due to circuit breaker credits, and
assessor refunds are significant contributors.
Local governmental units in DeKalb County did
not receive $1.5 million in tax cap credits and assessor
refunds of $1.4 million which both were in 2013.
For us, it turned our balance sheet upside down. It
became clear to us that our cost expenditures just
didn’t explode past revenue as some have written in the
newspaper but revenue losses have been the culprit of
DeKalb County.
We need to correct our financial condition. Council
members have been working for over a year using
budget cuts and shifts for two-thirds of the 2013 budget
and we have a status quo budget for 2014. With the
help of the Public Safety LOIT and the shifts that we
have made we will be able to correct this situation.
There has been name-calling, accusations and
misconceptions toward and about the DeKalb County
Council officials. It is not an easy task before us but
one that we have affirmed will be corrected. All of
the county employees and elected officials know of
the challenge upon us as we enter 2015. I have faith
in those officials and employees to best serve the
taxpayers of DeKalb County.
Alan Middleton
DeKalb County Council president
Marriage part of ever-evolving American experience
The last week of June brought
extraordinary images to Indiana.
With the stroke of a pen, federal
Judge Richard Young stuck down
the state’s marriage laws passed by
overwhelming bipartisan majorities. Within hours, hundreds of
gay couples flowed into Hoosier
courthouses from Indianapolis, to
Nashville, to Washington.
Three days later, a stay was
sought by Republican Attorney
General Greg Zoeller, and it was
issued by the 7th Circuit Court of
Appeals in Chicago, leaving many
of the newly-married Hoosiers in
legal limbo.
Several things struck me about
these turns of events. First, the
hundreds of gay and lesbian
couples that flowed into Hoosier
courthouses large and small did not
do so on a whim. Many of them
had been in committed, monogamous relationships for years, if not
decades. They were seeking equal
protection.
There was an inverse reaction
by many. Polling over the past
three years by my publication
Howey Politics Indiana measured
around 50 percent of the population who saw an affront. To these
Hoosiers, marriage is to be between
one man and one woman. The
laws were passed by Republicans and Democrats and signed
and supported by governors from
both parties. They saw “judicial
activism” turning over laws enacted
by the people’s representatives.
It was Daviess County Clerk
Sherri Healy who found herself
confronted by this legal and cultural
twist, or the “gray area” as she
described it. But then she articulated
thoughts that had many Hoosiers
nodding in agreement, telling a
gay couple seeking a license that
“our country was founded on the
Biblical principle of one man and
one woman in marriage, and until
I hear otherwise, that is what I will
follow.”
Thus, another
tormented chapter
in the ever-evolving
American experience.
State Sen. Mike
Delph, a Carmel
Republican and
a big proponent
the marriage
HOWEY of
laws as well as
POLITICAL the constitutional
REPORT amendment, once
handed me a
pamphlet entitled
Brian Howey “The Constitution of the United
States.” On several
of the first pages,
it quotes George
Washington, Daniel Webster,
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas
Jefferson and John and Samuel
Adams as “Observing the Hand of
Providence.”
The U.S. Constitution, Webster
would observe, was the work of
the “purest patriots” who were
aided “by the smiles of a benignant
Providence. It almost appears a
Divine interposition in our behalf.”
John Adams was quoted, “Our
Constitution was made only for a
moral and religious people.” But the
predominantly Christian nation of
the 18th through 21st centuries may,
in two or three centuries, give way
to a majority Buddhist or Hindu
nation. The founders purposely
separated church and state.
Yet, thumbing through the U.S.
Constitution, there is no reference to
marriage, as Clerk Healy believes.
But there is the 14th
Amendment, Section 1, which
reads, “No State shall make or
•
enforce any law which shall abridge
the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States; nor
shall any State deprive any person
of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law; nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws.”
I am no attorney, but when I
first began writing about the gay
marriage issue a decade ago, the
14th Amendment jumped out
at me. I saw nothing else in our
Constitution that would trump it.
Yet our current governor, attorney
general, speaker of the House and
president of the Senate — all with
law degrees — come to a different
conclusion.
How could they? Personal belief
and politics.
All first became public servants
or were elected in an era when
close to 60 percent of Hoosiers
believed that marriage should be
between one man and one woman.
Their political reality is that still
today, as a standing vote at the
Indiana Republican Convention
revealed with 75 percent supporting
a marriage platform plank. Much of
the rest of the electorate is moving
in a different direction.
We project our own views
through the American experience. This is why Thomas
Jefferson could pen, “We hold
these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are
life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness.”
And we all know that
Jefferson was a slave owner, as
were about a third of the signers.
America evolved on the issue,
fought a Civil War to change and
amended the Constitution.
When I first began writing
about the gay marriage
issue a decade ago, the 14th
Amendment jumped out at
me. I saw nothing else in
our Constitution that would
trump it.
•
State legislatures create laws,
just as Hoosier legislators have,
that have been overturned. In his
1963 inaugural address, Alabama
Gov. George Wallace defiantly
defended his state’s Jim Crow
laws, declaring, “In the name of
the greatest people that have ever
trod this earth, I draw the line
in the dust and toss the gauntlet
before the feet of tyranny, and I
say segregation now, segregation
tomorrow, segregation forever.”
In 1982, Wallace told a group
of Alabama blacks, “We thought
[segregation] was in the best
interests of all concerned. We
were mistaken. The Old South
is gone,” but “the New South
is still opposed to government
regulation of our lives.”
Think about that: Government
regulation of our lives. We don’t
want it in our gun cabinet, in our
bedrooms and a growing number
of Hoosiers believe they don’t
want government regulation at
the alter of our nuptials.
BRIAN HOWEY is publisher of the
Howey Political Report, a weekly
briefing on Indiana politics.
Contact him at 317-506-0883 or
at: howeypolitics.com.