Our Opinions:

FORGO POLITICS AND MAKE GEORGIA SAFER FOR CHILDREN

When children suffer because their methamphetamine-making parents put
them in harm's way, it's an undeniable tragedy. However, it's no less
tragic when children are hurt because their parents are addled by
crack cocaine, heroin or alcohol.

A comprehensive child endangerment bill would hold all parents liable
for reckless behavior that injures or kills a child, not just the
parents addicted to meth. But a comprehensive bill has been stymied in
the Legislature. So the GBI is drafting its own legislation, which
would speak only to children endangered or injured by methamphetamine
use or manufacture.

As the use of methamphetamine rises in the state, so do hazards to the
children living in homes in the thrall of the powerful and dangerous
drug. Four days before his first birthday, Chelton Hicks of Catoosa
County was burned on a third of his body by a fire that police say
resulted from his father's cooking of meth in a coffeepot over a
propane flame. The baby died four months later.

"There's nothing out there to address this problem," says GBI
spokesman John Bankhead. "This adds a little teeth to what's just gums
now."

The child protection laws in Georgia wouldn't be toothless if the
state Legislature weren't gutless.

Child endangerment bills have struggled for four years in the General
Assembly only to be sabotaged by ideological lawmakers attempting to
turn the bills into anti-abortion or pro-gun manifestos.

"When you have these amendments passed, other legislators don't want
to take a contrary position on abortion or guns because it can be used
against them as campaign fodder," says state Rep. Wendell Willard
(R-Sandy Springs), the primary sponsor of the child endangerment bill.

The child endangerment bill shouldn't be hijacked to extend legal
rights to the fetus or protect adults who leave their firearms within
reach of children. The law --- which exists in some form in every
state except Georgia --- is about justice for children who suffer as a
result of glaring negligence by a parent or guardian.

As such, it ought to have the robust support of Gov. Sonny Perdue, who
campaigned on a commitment to children and on passage of a child
endangerment law. But Perdue was eerily silent last session as the
bill was crushed under the heels of the radical fringe in the
Legislature, who consider the rights of adults more important than the
welfare of children.

His representatives promise the governor will have more to say this
session, but they refuse to comment on whether he will offer his own
legislation or back Willard's bipartisan efforts to resuscitate his
bill. "He's exploring many avenues," says Perdue spokeswoman Loretta
Lepore.

That would be fine if one of those avenues leads to passage of a law.
But key child advocacy groups say they haven't heard a word from
Perdue on child endangerment. Nor has Willard heard from him yet.

The silence may mean that Perdue and his young staff are hard on work
on a comprehensive child abuse package that would yoke all
child-specific crimes, now dealt with piecemeal and poorly in the
Georgia legal code. Or, the quiet may be a more ominous sign that
there's nothing happening on child endangerment and Georgia will
remain the only state unwilling to protect its children.