Wow, really interesting. There are legitimate needs for emotional support animals, but some of this stuff is starting to get out of hand....
more than 100 requests per year at Northern Arizona!
There are legitimate needs for emotional support animals...
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Are there? 25 years ago - there was no need.
What’s changed? Why the need now?
Exactly. I don’t have a problem with REAL support animals, but this was easily foreseen.
When the Equal Rights Amendment was being debated and put up for ratification back in 1972. It had the support of The House and The Senate as well as four living US Presidents (I believe Truman was still alive at the time).
There is this from Wikepedia: “...Congress had originally set a ratification deadline of March 22, 1979, for the state legislatures to consider the ERA. Through 1977, the amendment received 35 of the necessary 38 state ratifications. With wide, bipartisan support (including that of both major political parties, both houses of Congress, and Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter)[2] the ERA seemed destined for ratification until Phyllis Schlafly mobilized conservative women in opposition, arguing that the ERA would disadvantage housewives and cause women to be drafted into the military...”
I found this interesting, because they actually gave credit to Phyllis Schlafly for this, something the Leftist organization is loathe to do, but it is true. She nearly single-handedly mobilized people against it.
I say all this, because she asked the questions that people SHOULD have been asking, but didn’t, such as: “Are you prepared to draft women for combat roles?” “There are legal protections for women codified in law will be removed. Are you prepared for that?” and so on. When she walked people down that road using the Socratic method and let them think it through and see things they weren’t really considering, they decided against it, and the ERA was defeated.
If someone had asked those types of questions before, perhaps someone would have squashed this before it got started, with “Support Animals” of all types being allowed into places they have no reason to be.
Questions such as: “You support a support dog in restaurants. What if someone has some less ‘desirable’ animal such as a rat or rodent that is their “support animal”. Is that acceptable? Do we allow them in planes? How about sterile hospital rooms, or in offices?”
Or dormitories.
Keep your emotional support critter at home. If you feel a need to talk to fluffy, that’s what getting off work, driving home and relaxing is all about.