The police, social workers and teachers are not to blame, however. They’re often prevented from doing anything to interfere in child abuse, because Republicans, at the behest of the Christian right and under the guise of “parents rights,” implement laws that make it very hard for authorities to deal with abusive parents. In many states, for instance, it’s against the law for one adult to hit another adult, but you are allowed to hit a child so long as it doesn’t bruise or break the skin. The teacher may not like watching a kid go hungry at lunch, but until the kid is in medical danger, it’s not against the law in Utah. Republicans are so hostile to laws protecting the safety and well-being of children that they’ve even blocked the U.S. from ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, making ours the only nation in the world that doesn’t recognize the human rights of children.

Fucking monsters.