Marianne Proctor was at church the day a constituent walked up to the state representative to tell her about the manipulative grooming her daughter endured at a school within the legislator’s district.
“That teacher ... sought her out and engaged her for a year, to a year and a half,” Proctor told The Courier Journal in early December. “The mom caught the texts.”
She reported the messages to the Sheriff’s office.
That interaction — just one of an untold number of similar conversations happening across the Commonwealth and the nation — led Proctor (R-Union) to file House Bill 4 on Jan. 13, which seeks to criminalize grooming behavior.
Advocates have thrown their support behind the bill.
“Criminalizing grooming is a clear and necessary step to protect children,” Oldham County-based children’s advocate Ashley Nation told The Courier Journal. “Grooming is not harmless conversation, it is the intentional act of breaking down a child’s boundaries and distorting their reality for sexual benefit or exploitation, and that behavior must have consequences.”
Read the rest at the Courier-Journal.
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