Language matters, the House agreed on Wednesday, when it advanced a bill that would change the term “child pornography” to “child sexual abuse material” in Alaska state law.
The term “child pornography” is misleading because it implies consent and omits the gravity of a crime, said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer.
Children cannot legally consent to sex or being featured in sexually explicit material, so the name change acknowledges their victimhood and corrects the suggestion of their complicity, she said.
“The use of the term child sexual abuse material serves to correct this misconception highlighting the non-consensual and abusive nature that are depicted in these acts,” Vance said.
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To victims, she added: “We see you, we hear you. And we are going to call this what it is.”
Perpetrators are not making or watching pornography, they’re abusing children.
– Sgt. Matthew DuBois, Juneau Police Department, speaking on his own behalf
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House Bill 265 passed 39-1, with Rep. David Eastman, R-Wasilla, against. Eastman suggested the bill language was overly broad, but Vance rejected his argument.
“Under Alaska law, AS 11 41.455, audio, video, electronic and electromagnetic recording, photographs, negatives, slides, books, newspaper, magazine or other materials to visually or orally depicts the abuse of a child is currently defined as child pornography. But this bill will call it what it is child sexual abuse material,” she said.
Sgt. Matthew DuBois of the Juneau Police Department testified on his own behalf before the House Judiciary Committee in favor of the bill last month. He said in his 17 years in law enforcement he investigated many such cases.
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“There’s no such thing as child pornography,” he said, adding that such material is the result of children being groomed, forced or exploited by abusers — often with long-lasting and devastating effects on victims.
He said the current terminology implies a subcategory of legal pornography, which is misleading: “Perpetrators are not making or watching pornography, they’re abusing children,” he said.
The bill has support from statewide advocates against domestic violence and sexual assault, including the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, which supported the legislation in a letter.
“‘Child pornography’ suggests images of children posing in provocative positions, rather than suffering devastating sexual abuse. Children do not choose to engage in such acts, nor do they deserve to have such crimes filmed, distributed, and watched repeatedly by offenders,” it said.
Vance has sponsored a number of bills aimed at protecting victims of sexual crimes, particularly child victims; this is the first to be passed.
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The bill does not have a companion in the Senate. Members of the Senate Majority indicated they had not yet reviewed the bill, but may take it up in the Judiciary Committee. Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, added that it was late in the session.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
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This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
A new home under construction in Potter Valley in Anchorage. (Loren Holmes / ADN)
This June, two very different offers reach Alaska families, and both amount to the same thing: $10,000. The difference is everything.
Bill Walker, running for governor, would hand every eligible Alaskan a one-time $10,000 check and then end the Permanent Fund dividend for good. Ask one question: Where does his $10,000 come from?
It comes from the Permanent Fund, the people’s own money and the savings Alaskans built for their children. Walker would spend that endowment once to pay Alaskans to give up the yearly dividend forever.
Think about what that does. It cancels the annual check that gives a family a reason to keep an Alaska address and replaces it with a single payout. You hand people their own savings, call it a gift and cut the tie that held them here in the same motion. It is the oldest mistake in governing money: raid what you have saved to buy a moment’s applause and call the spending generosity.
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A plan that spends the people’s savings to send the people away is not bold. It is foolish.
Now consider the other $10,000. Through Alaska Housing Finance Corp., the state offers families up to $10,000 to build a new, energy-efficient home. AHFC raids nothing. It earns its own way. Over the years, it has returned more than $2 billion to the state treasury, and it spends some of that income the way any good business does: to win a customer.
Here, the customer is an Alaskan who wants to own a home, put down roots and stay.
That is the oldest sound move in business: Invest a little of what you earn to bring in someone who stays. The homeowner remains, the community gains a family and the corporation keeps earning. The money spent comes back. A plan that puts earnings to work to bring people home is not charity. It is clever.
Same amount. Opposite source. Opposite wisdom. One spends savings; the other spends earnings. One pays Alaskans to leave; the other pays them to stay. One empties the state; the other fills it.
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This Homeownership Month, the choice is the size of a single check, and the whole question is where the check comes from and what it asks of you. Ten thousand dollars of your own fund, to wave you goodbye. Or $10,000, earned and reinvested, to help you stay and build.
Evan Swensen is the publisher of Publication Consultants in Anchorage and the author of “What’s the Money For: A Permanent Fund Mortgage Proposal.”
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