A society can reach a point where it is literally too stupid to survive. Are we getting close to that fatal juncture? Here is one of many thousands of data points: a judge in Indiana has ordered that state to pay for sex-change surgery on a convicted murderer.
Not just any murderer, but Jonathan Richardson, who is serving a 55-year sentence for strangling his own stepdaughter. He now goes by Autumn Cordellionè. The accent is a nice touch.
The inmate has sought sex reassignment surgery, including an orchiectomy and vaginoplasty, arguing it is the “only remedy” to treat “persistent gender dysphoria”.
The state of Indiana prohibits its prison service from funding gender reassignment surgeries for its inmates.
But the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the Indiana Department of Corrections on Cordellionè’s behalf, arguing the state law violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment”.
***
A federal judge in Indiana has now agreed that denying the surgery would be unconstitutional.
So the ACLU argues, and the judge agrees, that is is “cruel and unusual punishment” not to do something horrific to inmate Richardson, but to decline to do something on his behalf.
Indiana’s attorney general says the state will appeal, and we can hope that the taxpayers will ultimately prevail. In any prior historical era, at any time and place, a man who strangled his own stepdaughter would have been executed. In today’s America, he is humored, given a name change, treated with hormones and other drugs, supplied with “panties, make-up, and form-fitting clothing,” and may be given a free sex change operation.
We can only hope that the taxpayers haven’t been forced to pay for Richardson’s tattoos:
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.