I wrote a book several years ago with two coauthors on the law as it affects mental health professionals. It's a comprehensive review of Vermont law on the broad range of legal issues that mental health professionals may have to deal with, from licensure and business issues to domestic relations, criminal law, mental health law, and other topics.
We were at a bit of a loss in deciding how to address some of the legal concepts and language, such as the statutory grounds for annulment of a marriage, which now provides for annulment based on the “idiocy” or “lunacy” of the parties. Offensive as it is, this is actually how official Vermont viewed some of our fellow citizens when the law was enacted.
Today, thanks to legislation introduced by Washington Senator Anthony Pollina and signed into law yesterday by Governor Shumlin, offensive terms such as this will soon be a thing of the past.
The new law establishes a commission to study Vermont statutes and report to the Legislature by November 1–warp speed in the world of legislative commissions– on proposed changes to the law that will “reflect positive views of people with disabilities”.
As someone who represents people labeled as mentally ill, I congratulate and thank Senator Pollina, Governor Shumlin, and the legislators and advocates who saw this bill through to enactment.
Language frames attitudes, so it’s good to see this baby step. One hopes it can make advocacy and services more effective in the end.
I’ve had a few break-ups in my day in which “idiocy” or “lunacy” were major factors in deciding to end the relationship 😉
Not so much the issue, but more to how often you and I aren’t on the same page of late! As before, I was considering a diary coming down on the opposite side of this!
Rather than do that again (heh), I’ll just drop a comment. I’m uncomfortable with the law as written. Better just to take on the offending (which in some cases I would argue are not so much offensive as absurd) statutes directly, rather than codify “a positive view” of anybody or any group in law. The law shouldn’t be promoting either a positive or a negative view, but rather should reflect neutrality.
I don’t think statutory language should be used in that way. It’s as in appropriate in it’s way as having it include derisive terminology. That’s two ends of the same spectrum – a spectrum the language of our laws should not be engaging with one way or the other.