Daily Herald
Saturday, January 27, 2007

Buffalo Chip to Rep. David Litvack for writing quicksand underneath House Bill 28, a legally squishy and overbroad statute that would extend Utah's domestic violence law by allowing the issuance of protective orders against violent non-domestic dating partners. We're all for the issuance of protective orders against violent people, regardless whether they're in the home or out of it. But we're not for nebulous legal standards. The existing law at least uses measurable criteria in defining a domestic relationship. Litvack's definition of a dating relationship is pure mush -- "a social relationship of a romantic or intimate nature" that "does not include a casual relationship" or "casual fraternization." In considering a request for a protective order, a judge would consider "a totality of the circumstances," including whether the parties "developed a minimal social, interpersonal bonding, over and above mere fraternization." What a very large glob of verbal goo all this is. What if one person falls hopelessly in love on the first date, but the other continues to fraternize after many months? All we can say is "Play Misty for me."

Beehive to Trent Miskell and his students for reaching out to children in Uganda. Miskell, an English teacher at Payson Middle School, was teaching his students how to write short stories when his class viewed a movie about children coping with civil war in Uganda. The students decided to write books for children in the war torn nation as a way to help. For the past three months, the students have been working on their stories, and Miskell has been saving up to send the finished works overseas.

Buffalo Chip to Rep. Scott Wyatt for trying to pull the plug on video games for kids. Other states have already been there and done that -- and have been slapped down by the courts. House Bill 50 would add violent video games to the list of materials deemed harmful to minors, and thus bar them from being sold to young buyers. The Logan Republican is ignoring warnings from Attorney General Mark Shurtleff that similar laws in eight states have been found unconstitutional. Wyatt's colleagues need to tell him that it's "game over" for this bill before a judge does.

Beehive to the Utah State Senate for rejecting a bill that would allow people anonymously to turn in incompetent drivers. Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, argued that the current law (which requires the state's Driver's License Division to reveal the name of the snitch) was impeding the reporting of unsafe drivers. Other senators, including Senate Majority Leader Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, and Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, correctly argued that anonymity opens the door to false accusations. The Senate voted 18-10 against the bill.