Douglas Whaley

. The Ohio Legislature has approved a bill that would allow parents to conceal loaded guns in baby strollers and carriages, even if the baby is also on board.   "It's a splendid extension of our cherished Second Amendment rights," crowed Representative Howard Teap, the bill's sponsor, "since it would never occur to a mugger that a mother might pull a gun from a stroller and defend herself by shooting him down."   The bill would also allow hidden guns in all sorts of baby carriers, including backpacks and slings.   To avoid accidental discharge of guns concealed in these things, the gun would have to be heavy enough that the infant could neither lift it him/herself nor pull the trigger without parental or sibling assistance. When opponents of the bill protested this latest extension of Ohio's vigorous gun protection laws, Representative Teap pointed out forcefully that "Babies are also Americans with Second Amendment rights!"   This a...

. I moved to Columbus, Ohio, in late 1975 from Indianapolis, where I was a Professor Law at the Indiana Indianapolis School of Law, to be a Visiting Professor at The Ohio State University College of Law.   On one level this was purely a professional experience, but, as I've explained in detail elsewhere on this blog (see Related Posts, below, particularly "The Aging Gay Rights Activist"), primarily what I was doing was leaving the straight world for a tentative step into the unknown world of someone who has finally figured out he is gay and is terrified by this leap off a very high cliff. Douglas Whaley Moves to Columbus The Reverend Jerry Falwell For a few years I mainly explored the sexual adventures in this new (and very exciting) life, but then the budding activist in me took charge.   Fueled by anger at how homosexual men and women were then being treated, I looked for a venue in which I could make a difference.   By 1980, as it happened, things we...