Lesbian Custody Rights Upheld on a Technicality

A Virginia appellate court ruled Tuesday that the biological mother in a lesbian custody dispute must abide by the laws of Vermont, where she and her former partner entered into a civil union.

The ruling avoided the more important question: whether Virginia can be forced to recognize a same-sex union sanctioned in another state.

The Los Angeles Times reported the decision was still celebrated by gay and lesbian groups. Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, called it a "big deal."

"The fact that the court would apply that rule of law objectively and fairly to a lesbian plaintiff is an enormously important victory," she said.

Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which represented the biological mother, called the case "the tip of the iceberg of what's to come if one state cannot define its own marriage policy and must be subservient to the same-sex marriage policy of a sister state."

Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said the case may have had a different outcome if the mother had moved first and then filed to dissolve the civil union.

"This decision was really not about the state of Virginia being forced to recognize a Vermont civil union," he said.

"This was a custody/visitation-rights case that was decided by a federal statute originally passed to handle disputes like this involving multiple state-court proceedings."

The Silence of the Wedding Bells

November 29, 2006
By Carey Roberts


Am I the only one who is worried about the collapse of the traditional American family right before our very eyes?

Census Bureau bureaucrats are not in the habit of making apocalyptic pronouncements, but last year Mark Mather reported that the “dramatic decline” in the married population is “one of the biggest demographic stories of the past several decades.” Now, married couples now account for a minority – 49.7% to be exact – of all U.S. households.

The cause of this extraordinary demographic shift is two-fold. First, Americans are getting married only half as often as we used to. Second since 1960, the share of divorced Americans rose from 2% to 10%.

African-American communities have been especially hard-hit. In 1960 four-fifths of all Black families had fathers and mothers at home. Three decades later, that number had plummeted to 38%.

As a result of the decline of marriage, illegitimacy is on the upswing. Just last week the National Center for Health Statistics announced that almost four in 10 babies were born out-of-wedlock in 2005.

All this is very bad news for kids, since children raised only by mothers are more likely to be poor, suffer from a host of behavioral and academic problems, and get in trouble with the law.
For sure, the great majority of young women say they plan to get married and have kids some day.

So why has Cosmo replaced Bride magazine in the supermarket check-out lines?

Some experts cite the “greater economic independence of women,” as if a single mom scraping by on a welfare check is what female liberation is all about. Others argue that Americans are simply delaying the age of marriage, suggesting that women who are nervously watching their biological clocks just need to be a little more patient.

But there’s one fact that’s hard to dispute: our country faces an acute shortage of marriage-minded men.

Two years ago Barbara Whitehead and David Popenoe of Rutgers University did a national survey of single heterosexual men, ages 25-34. To everyone’s shock, they found 22% of the men declared no interest in finding their One and Only.

[http://marriage.rutgers.edu/Publications/SOOU/TEXTSOOU2004.htm]

That means two million American women will likely never see the inside of a wedding chapel.

Now, hooking-up is replacing that quaint courtship ritual that used to be known as “dating.” When Norval Glenn and Elizabeth Marquardt surveyed college senior women, they found that one-third of the women had been asked on fewer than two dates.

And this past August the New York Times ran a piece on “Facing Middle Age with No Degree, and No Wife,” which revealed the reluctance to wed runs especially deep in less educated men.
There is overwhelming research that shows marriage benefits both men and women in terms of their financial and emotional well-being. Plus, married folks live longer. So what do we need to do to entice men back into the courtship ritual?

The Nasty Nellies have been giving marriage a bum rap for years, so sadly there are no quick fixes. But this is what we need to do.

First, we need to dispose of the boogeyman of the patriarchal ogre lording over his beleaguered wife. If that image was ever true, it certainly doesn’t apply to any couple that I know of. In fact, the reverse now seems to be more commonplace: the harried, henpecked husband who’s hectored to keep his feet off the furniture during the ball game.

Second, we need to consider the effects of the 1992 Supreme Court’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision that banned fathers from participating in decisions to keep the unborn baby, thus leaving them biologically disenfranchised.

Third, we’ve got to do more to help boys excel academically. Trash the Title IX quotas, provide special help for boys who are lagging, and tell teachers to stop expecting boys to act like girls.

Fourth, we need to do a major overhaul of our nation’s domestic violence laws, which allow any woman to plunder her husband’s assets and steal his children by merely claiming “abuse.”

And fifth, reform of our divorce laws is long overdue, so fathers are encouraged to remain involved in their children’s lives as parents, not every-other-weekend visitors.

Sadly in low-income Black communities, marriage is essentially a dead institution. And there are groups in our country that now want to extend their agenda of family destruction to society at large.

The family is the very building block of a civilized and prosperous society. What will it take to bring back the exuberant peal of June wedding bells?

U.S. Supreme Court Turns Away School-Voucher Case

Parents sought to use vouchers for religious-school tuition.


The U.S. Supreme Court's refusal Monday to hear a school voucher case out of Maine leaves a confusing patchwork of laws around the country.

Eight families from rural communities without high schools sought to use vouchers to send their kids to religious schools, but a state court ruled that an impermissible mixing of church and state.

All the children involved in the suit have since graduated.

Their attorney, Dick Komer of the Institute for Justice, called the high court's refusal the "end of the road."

"This was their final shot," he told Family News in Focus. "As long as parents are making free and independent choices, they should be entitled to select whatever school they prefer."


Legal experts warn against reading too much into a denial from the high court. But Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said the decision leaves the country split on vouchers and religious schools.

"Every state statute is different," he said, "so every result comes out a little bit differently."
Five states offer school vouchers – Wisconsin, Arizona and Ohio allow them to be used for religious schools, Maine and Vermont do not. The provision in Arizona is being challenged.

Sean Parnell, vice president for external affairs at the Heartland Institute, said if there's an upside to the confusion, it's that states allowing religious schools to participate will have the opportunity to prove it can work.

"At this early stage in the school-voucher movement," he said, "we're going to see the states act as 'laboratories of democracy.' "

Feminist Takeover of the U.N. is an Issue of National Security

by David R. Usher


A November 11th Washington Times article “[1] Abused wives in India pin hope on anti-violence law” resulted in a number of letters to the editor of the Times, claiming that the article is biased. The Times article blithely repeated an eye-popping claim that “A 2005 U.N. Population Fund report found that 70 percent of married women in India were victims of beatings or rape”, without even questioning it.

On November 17th, the Times published [2] three identical letters to the editor, but prefaced them with this highly unusual editorial set-up:

[Editor’s note: All of the letters below use the same phrasing to try to make a case that women aren’t the only victims of domestic abuse. But the writers detract from the issue. First of all, the article was not biased against men; it set out to report on the new laws in India and it did precisely that. Moreover, writers’ arguments would likely be taken more seriously if they were to dispense with the deceit. We asked each of the writers if they had personally written the letter and each said yes. Obviously, that is not the case. Domestic abuse, whether at the hands of a man or a woman, is a serious offense. Relegating such an issue to chain letters and false claims hurts victims of both genders. We stand by our news story.]

Anyone who has been in politics knows that “form” emails on issues of import are frequently originated by organizations who know the ropes, and lots of little guys send them everywhere. And, what Lilliputian would not like to see his or her name in the Washington Times?


The Problem of Feminism in Media, Government, and Politics

Now we get to the heart of the subject raised in the letters the Washington Times glossed over. The “form” letter was originated by [3] RADAR, a highly credible organization comprised of scientists, lawyers, and scholars in an alert titled [4] Fake Statistics Used to Claim that Wife-Beating is Men’s “Birthright”.

In its alert, RADAR did the research the Times failed to do. RADAR discovered that the U.N Population Fund’s claim that “70 percent of married women in India were victims of beatings or rape” is founded on surveys by women’s advocates that are neither consistent nor scientific. Let me demonstrate the feminist rumor mill in action right before your very eyes.

The study “Profiling Domestic Violence: A Multicountry Study”, by Kishor and Johnson, is heavily cited as the basis for positions adopted within the [5] UNPF report. To my knowledge, the Kishor study has not been subjected to peer review. Nonetheless, the convenient parts were extracted for the purposes of the UNPF report.

Here is the first tip-off that the Kishor “study” is a misrepresentation of science: Real studies are publicly published for peer review, and not used for anything until review is complete and scientists substantively agree the report is solid.

The second tip-off: The Kishor and Johnson study is not a study. It is a collection of “surveys”, as evidenced by statements in the UNFP reports. There are major differences between studies and surveys. If the authors had intended to be scinetifically honest, the paper would have been titled “Profiling Domestic Violence: A Multicountry Survey”.

The third tip-off: The Kishor study was published by [6] Macro International, Inc. ORC Macro is an opinion research corporation, not a scientific research organization.

The Fourth tip-off: world feminists base their claim that “70 percent of married women in India were victims of beatings or rape” on the following illustration from the UNPF report:



















What is wrong with this chart?

The title of the graphic reads “Women Who Believe Wife Beating is Justified for at Least One Reason”. But vertical axis of the graphic reads “Percent of ever-married [sic] women ages 15-49 who have ever experienced domestic violence”. There is no way to determine what, if anything, this chart is supposed to show. “Rape” is not even mentioned (as claimed in the UNPF report). A 7th grade student would get an “F” for turning in a classroom assignment like this.

The final tip-off (and the clincher): The UNPF [7] Fact Sheet contains the following graphic extracted from the same Kishor and Johnson “study”. There is a problem here: the authors claim here that only 19% of Indian women are subjected to domestic violence, disagreeing tremendously with the meaninless 70% figure claimed in the chart above:

















No more discussion is needed about the UNPF report. Kishor and Johnson are throwing ping pong balls at the wall, hoping that one of them will stick. This is yet another classic example of the [8] feminist rumor mill in action.

The one thing we can believe about the UNPF report is that it is simply incredible. It is indeed terrifying that the U.N is about to embark on the feminist plan for world conquest based on nothing more than wildly inconsistent informal surveys done by women’s advocates (if they were even done at all).

To make sure there are no misunderstandings on the facts of international domestic violence, RADAR cited a reputable international study on the matter by the reputable Dr. Murray Straus, titled [9] “Dominance and Symmetry in Partner Violence by Male and Female University Students in 32 Nations”. His study proves that international domestic violence is essentially evenly distributed, and calls for substantially different approaches to domestic violence intervention than what is being forced on the world today by power-crazed feminists.

Feminism is an Issue of National Security

Those who do not wish to see India become yet another terrorist state need to focus immediately on stopping what feminists are doing in the United Nations. Indians I am in communication with see their new domestic violence law as a “cultural invasion by western feminists”. They know it is phony, and intended to destroy marriage and Indian society by empowering foreign radicals to take over the country and dictate from a pink pedestal of feminist dictatorship. Indians are both terrified and furious. They know this invasion is predominantly coming from America.

We must realize that feminists are terrorists too. You cannot see their guns or bombs. Feminists use the invisible weapons of sexism, fear, misinformation, hate, and allegory to achieve the same level of control of entire societies. This has been accomplished in most western societies. Feminists now wish to take control of the United Nations.

Feminism is exactly what Muslim radicals oppose. Mark my words: if India becomes radicalized against America, we will not be able to say that we did not ask for it. Let us do the right thing and shut down the export of radical feminism now, while we still have a chance.
Let the American people not get caught again between these two very radical and dangerous factions. Before we can expect to see declines in Muslim radicalism, we must first reign in American feminist terrorists who have made us the most deeply hated country in the Muslim world. A lively national debate about this should commence immediately. Our future national security depends decisively on it.

We must realize that feminism is a political problem. Virtually every feminist “study” ever done has been thoroughly debunked, but not until after great damage was done in politics and law. For many years, the feminist game has been to lay out false science faster than politicians and scientists can figure out they have been had. Politicians must stop playing sucker to this classic feminist trick. The only way to handle this problem is for politicians and policy makers to ignore feminists and send them packing faster than they can walk in the door.
This is an international fiasco which, if unchecked, will drag American into untold wars against a growing number of countries who hate our guts.

I fully realize that my identification of feminism as being a terrorist movement, and how it is a major driver of anti-American Muslim radicalism, is way ahead of conventional wisdom. Folks, whether you like it or not, the evidence points to this conclusion. Reigning in radical feminism is just as much a national security issue as is stopping would-be bombers from entering our borders. This does not include the tremendous benefits to the American economy and the taxpayers that will result from reform of federal policies presently destroying marriage while doing nothing to help it.

My message to President Bush: We did not allow Russian Prime Minister Molotov dictate the shape of the United Nations when it was founded (you can listen to an [10] mp3 of my grandfather, [11] Dr. Roland G. Usher reporting about Molotov from San Francisco during the founding of the U.N.) .

We cannot allow American Marxist-socialists to do it now and end up with much of the world in full revolt. We could not bear the cost of securing every square inch of America, and the rest of the world too. It is therefore, in our national interest, to have Ambassador Bolton block the acceptance of the U.N. Secretary-General’s report on Domestic Violence.

Where feminist take-over of the U.N. is clearly an issue of national security, you might wish to send a copy of this article to the Washington Times. The email address for the International editor is djones@washingtontimes.com. You might want to copy Mr. Francis Coombs, Managing Editor, at [12] fcoombs@washingtontimes.com.

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[Note to readers: This article was modified on Sunday, Nov. 19th, to include new information relevant to the story, and to correct errors in the first version published on Saturday, Nov. 18.]

Domestic Violence Rumor Mill Runs the United Nations

By David R. Usher

If United States Ambassador John Bolton fails to act, world feminists will seize vast powers to destroy families internationally while committing tremendous human rights violations against men, women, and children in every country of the world.

The Secretary-General’s study on domestic violence against women [DAW], developed under the corrupt leadership of Kofi Annan, is a much greater threat to America than the rejected Kyoto Protocol ever was. It calls for the establishment of a new feminist world order, possessing unilateral powers to mindlessly destroy marriage and steal family and business assets by teaching women how to holler “abuse”.

Everyone agrees that domestic violence is a problem. Feminists dishonestly pretend it is entirely problem of unruly men, buttressed by unreliable myopic surveys of women. The purpose of this feminist approach is to achieve the primary goal of radical feminism: to destroy marriage, seize children and family wealth, and establish the liberated single-mother family.

Unfounded allegations of abuse are the political and legal vector already used in many western countries to achieve this end.

The senseless destruction of marriage, homes, families, and the lives of children in western cultures has deeply violated the human rights of everyone. It has transformed many good cities into third-world urban disasters suffering from rampant illegitimacy, prostitution, crime, child sexual predation, and poverty. Radicals at the United Nations wish to force their new world order on the rest of the world.

The truth is this: women are as likely, or even more likely than men to engage in, and initiate, domestic violence. According to a 32-nation by Murray Straus, female-only partner aggression is twice as prevalent as male-only partner abuse.

Many credible individuals now recognize this fact. They acknowledge the truth, and in many cases advocating strongly against the looming radical takeover of the United Nations. You can count on leaders and knowledgeable professionals (not driven by entitlements or political power) such as President Bush, Phyllis Schlafly, Dr. Gerald Koocher (President of the APA), Dr. Murray Straus, Dr. Don Dutton, Wendy McElroy, Dr. Felicity Goodyear-Smith, and Lee Newman [SAFE International] to speak the truth.

Even a child could see through the rumor-mill-fed machinations of feminists. Here are a few examples:

The 113-page United Nations Report admits it is based on a “lack [of] systematic and reliable data on violence against women”. There is no evidence in the report that any information was collected about women’s violence against men.

Without any supportive factual foundation, the U.N. Report claims that “Violence against women persists in every country in the world as a pervasive violation of human rights and a major impediment to achieving gender equality”.

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights framework for model legislation on domestic violence is a carte-blanche vehicle empowering feminists to violate science and human rights in every country of the world. It defines domestic violence solely as “gender-specific violence directed against women“, and admonishes states to “adopt the broadest possible definitions of acts of domestic violence”.

It states, “There shall be no restrictions on women bringing suits against spouses or live-in partners”. The victim must be advised “of her rights as outlined below”. The responding officer must “arrange for the removal of the offender from the home and, if that is not possible and if the victim is in continuing danger, arrest the offender”. It permits immediate seizure of assets, and criminal conviction on the sole basis uncorroborated testimony by the alleged victim.

WHO’s director Lee Jong-Wook made a stunning, scientifically-juxtaposed claim about global domestic violence: “Women are more at risk from violence involving people they know at home than from strangers in the street.”

The World Bank estimates that “sexual and domestic violence accounts for 19 per cent of the disease burden among women aged 15-44 in industrialised countries”. Do banks scientifically study domestic violence?

A UNPF report alleges that two-thirds of married women in India were victims of domestic violence, and then contradicts itself by claiming that 70 per cent of married women in India between the age of 15 and 49 are victims of beating, rape or coerced sex. This report also asserts that the rate of domestic violence is much higher in Egypt with 94 per cent and Zambia with 91 per cent.

UNICEF makes a wild assertion based on a “study” done in conjunction with Body Shop International (a mail-order firm specializing in toiletries) “at least one in three women globally has been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in some other way-most often by someone she knows, including by her husband or another male family member. Globally, one woman in four has been abused during pregnancy.” If one-quarter of pregnant women are beaten, that leaves only 8% being beaten when they are not pregnant. The report spends much time discussing children living in situations of domestic violence, but fails to determine whether domestic abuse by the mother or father is the cause of child problems.

Where do these dangerous claims come from?

Non-Governmental Womens organizations around the world generate volumes of narcissistic surveys about violence. These are fed to feminists in the United Nations, whose re-sytheses are recited round-robin by NGO’s, creating vast illusions for predatory political use.

Here are a few examples how the revolving feminist rumor mill works:

Women’s activists in Russia claim that 50,000 Russian women are beaten every hour.
If this is true, every one of the 66,758,805 women in Russia would be beaten every 13 days.

The Texas Council on Family violence makes unfathomable claims based on nothing more than informal surveys of women: “Over 24,000 women from 15 sites in 10 countries were interviewed for the World Health Organization’s study which showed that over 75 per cent of them were physically or sexually abused since the age of 15 and reported a partner as the culprit.”

Based solely on self-generated “surveys” of women, feminist activists in India claim that 70% of women are abused, despite the fact that no credible scientific studies have ever been undertaken to support the claim.

The Feminist Majority cites World Health Organization (WHO) surveys of women, saying that “More than 25 percent of women said they had experienced moderate to severe domestic violence in the last year.

At six of the 15 sites, over 50 percent of women had experienced a moderate to severe level of domestic violence. The study found that rural Ethiopia had the highest rate of domestic violence, with 71 percent of women experiencing violence in the home.

United Nations should be involved in ending domestic violence. The approach must be realistic and scientifically appropriate on a country-by-country basis. Clearly, the ideological feminist approach will harm many women, men, and families, and be dangerous to the world. The United States must not submit to foreign controls that lump it in the same category as Sudan.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Ambassador Bolton should testify against acceptance of the Secretary General’s Report, and state why it is unacceptable. President Bush should send a message that the United States will not support the United Nations at the present level of $5.3 billion annually, should it pursue a course of action that will clearly violate human rights in most egalitarian countries of the world.

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David R. Usher is Senior Policy Analyst for the True Equality Network, and President of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, Missouri Coalition.

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How HHS Bullies North Dakota Citizens

by Stephen Baskerville and Mitchell S. Sanderson
(This article originally appeared in the Aug 17, 2006 edition of Human Events)


Those who work in what was once nobly known as the civil service -- and what has degenerated into the "bureaucracy" -- are required by law and ethics to be politically neutral.

Presidents and members of Congress, cabinet and sub-cabinet secretaries can voice opinions. Even judges are permitted (and often abuse) a privilege of obiter dicta. But career officials are supposed to implement the policies of the people and their elected officials, not publicly advocate what those policies should be.

To allow lobbying by federal officials, who after all have coercive authority over citizens, turns the civil service from the people’s servants into a taxpayer-funded advocacy organization that can suppress citizens’ opinions or activities it considers incorrect or threatening. "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation," wrote Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, "it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox politics, nationalism, religion, or any other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."

So it is disturbing to learn that Thomas Sullivan, regional administrator for the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), sent a letter last month to North Dakota state Sen. Tom Fisher urging the defeat of a proposed ballot initiative. North Dakota citizens are now collecting signatures for a popular measure providing for shared parenting for children of divorce. This would alleviate the problem of fatherless children and ease the impact of family breakup on both children and society. But these citizens must now contend with the opposition of not only the state’s powerful divorce lobby, but also a $47 billion agency of the $500 billion U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

A ballot initiative allows citizens to act when legislatures do not. To pressure a legislator to thwart their action -- marshaling the full weight of the multi-billion dollar federal bureaucracy -- is a serious obstruction of democracy and violation of federalism. (To his credit, Sen. Fisher has given no sign of responding to this pressure.) Sullivan insists categorically (and erroneously) that North Dakota will lose "all" money for welfare and child support enforcement if the people’s will prevails. He explicitly urges Sen. Fisher to take "whatever steps are necessary to ensure that initiated measures are not enacted."

Advisory interpretations of regulations in response to legislative requests are one thing. But Sullivan’s letter reads more like a threat. Since he is interpreting the likely impact of a future measure under federal regulations -- a speculative matter that is subject to final interpretation through administrative processes or courts -- one would expect qualified language: words like "could" or "may." Instead Sullivan issues what amounts to an ultimatum to North Dakota: Voting the initiative into law "will result in immediate suspension of all Federal payments for the State’s child support enforcement program."

This is almost certainly not true. Leaving aside the fact that an advisory opinion is normally issued by the agency’s legal counsel, not an administrator, what is missing (and troubling) in Sullivan’s threat is the routine give-and-take when civil servants implement legislative actions. Sullivan ignores the possibility that regulations might be interpreted in ways that avoid triggering suspension of funds, let alone the option of a waiver. Many states have been out of compliance with child support regulations for different reasons for years; by some critical measures, all states are arguably out of compliance today. Yet these states have not lost any of their funding, let alone "all" of it and "immediately."

Those who argue that federal funds are used for "extortion" could hardly find a clearer illustration. Kansas officials used precisely this language to describe related HHS regulations. "Under the guise of cracking down on so-called deadbeat dads, the Congress has required the states to carry out a massive and intrusive federal regulatory scheme by which personal data on all state citizens" is collected, the attorney general’s office charged in a federal suit. Echoing terms frequently used by fathers to describe coerced child support, one Kansas legislator called the federal directives "extortion," and colleagues in neighboring Nebraska described them as "a form of blackmail."

HHS, and specifically ACF, already embarrassed the Bush administration last year by paying journalists. Though conservatives were unfairly excoriated for transgressions that liberals have practiced for years, the point is that HHS is a constant temptation to corruption because it serves as an engine for placing large numbers of people on the federal payroll.

The head of ACF, Assistant Secretary Wade Horn, is justly famous for publicizing the terrible costs of fatherless children. The North Dakota initiative offers the first concrete hope of actually alleviating this crisis, with no cost to taxpayers (and savings for federal taxpayers). But his agency is now telling states that their fiscal solvency depends on broken families: no broken families, no federal money.

We have allowed both federal and state governments such a stake in family breakdown that the financing of state budgets has converted government into a family destruction machine.

Predictably, federal bureaucrats are now using taxpayers’ money to strong-arm citizens from democratic decisions that, by relieving a serious social problem, threaten to render the bureaucrats redundant. What is unusual in this federal official’s intervention into North Dakota politics is not that he did it but that he felt no need to disguise it.

California School District to Fingerprint Students?

The Associated Press reported today on a plan by a California school district to fingerprint elementary school students when they buy lunch.

Hope Elementary School District has notified parents that, beginning this month, students at Monte Vista, Vieja Valley and Hope elementary schools will press an index finger to a scanner before they are able to buy cafeteria food. The scan will identify the student's name and student ID, teacher's name and how much the student owes, since some receive government assistance for food.

"It raises sanitary issues, privacy issues — it is kind of Orwellian," said Tina Dabby, a parent of two at Monte Vista Elementary. "It just sounds kind of creepy."

The current process allows for information to be written on paper and transferred to computer so reports can be compiled and sent to state and federal government agencies, which reimburse school districts for the subsidized lunches served. School officials claim that the idea is meant to speed up cafeteria lines.

"It's so archaic to transfer something from a sheet of paper to a computer day-by-day," Hope schools Superintendent Gerrie Fausett told a local newspaper.

A similar procedure is already in use in the Santa Barbara School Districts, where students punch a six-digit number into a keypad that calls up their name, photograph and other details, including whether they have food allergies.