[follow-up to editorial in West Virginia "The State Journal" newspaper of last week - "Lactation Today, Tomorrow, Forever, Lawmakers often take the easy path rather than work on the important issues facing the Mountain State.
original editorial:
http://www.statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=11147&catid=159]

Janice Reynolds.

http://www.statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=11306

As I predicted in my column last week, some of the "lactivists" pushing a bill in West Virginia to require private businesses to allow breastfeeding on demand on their premises have denounced me for being against breastfeeding, against women and against infants for opposing the bill. 

One outraged writer even called me a "baby starver." 

I'll state for the record that I'm a strong proponent of breastfeeding and that anyone who is offended by appropriately modest public nursing is taking prudishness too far. 

But I'll stop far short of suggesting that the state government needs to step in and regulate the practice. For that, I'm denounced as being against breastfeeding. 

That kind of intellectual bullying will result in this bad bill eventually being passed by our knock-kneed Legislature. 

The problem with single-issue activism, or in this case, lactivism, is that there are no single issues. 

Every contrived right imagined by such people and enshrined in the law is another strike against liberty and another hole in the Constitution. 

A mother has the right to feed her child. A shopkeeper has the right to be a jerk. Those are issues that state governments can't resolve. 

Chris Stirewalt is political editor for The State Journal. He can be reached at (304) 720-6553 or by e-mail at cstirewalt@ statejournal.com

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