Florida can save tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and enhance public safety by shifting resources from expensive residential facilities to more effective and efficient community-based programs and sanctions.
Despite record budget deficits, Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice continues to spend enormous sums of taxpayer dollars on expensive residential institutions. These institutions hold thousands of children who could be better served in less expensive, more effective community-based programs — programs that hold youth accountable, protect public safety, produce better outcomes for children and families, and make it more likely that children go on to become productive and employable members of society.
Congressional repeal of the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, which will allow gay men and lesbians to serve in the armed forces without having to hide their orientation, has set off waves of condemnation among anti-gay opponents who predict all measure of doom and disaster for the military and America. Yet it serves us well to recall a decision that put an end to another unjust policy steeped in fear and prejudice rather than fact and logic.
The Family Research Council (FRC), a hate group that spreads demonizing lies about gay men and lesbians, claims that it’s simply a pro-family organization. But don’t gay men and lesbians have families, too?
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