Maryland Democrats want to place condom vending machines in kindergartens

"Shocking news: The Maryland State House is advancing a bill that would allow the sale of condoms in vending machines on public school campuses, including preschools.

Republicans in the legislature say this goes too far. Maryland State Delegate Kathy Schlege is calling on parents to wake up, and she joins us now.

Here’s what the Maryland Department of Legislative Services says about the bill moving through the State House. This law repeals the misdemeanor prohibition and associated penalty for selling or offering for sale a contraceptive or contraceptive device through a vending machine or other automatic device at a kindergarten, nursery school, elementary school, or secondary school. And I think a lot of people at home are saying, what?

All of us on the floor—well, most of us—said exactly that. What is this? So we introduced an amendment to the bill on its second reading, when a law can be modified, to apply only to high schools. We don’t even like that, the Republicans and the Maryland Freedom Caucus don’t agree, but they rejected it.

Many schools teach abstinence, right? Maybe abstinence until marriage or until college, but putting condoms in vending machines… What justification is there for doing this in a daycare or a kindergarten? Unless they just want to make a law so broad that it doesn’t even require interpretation. It makes no sense at all.

Maybe the intention at some point was only for high schools, but when they rejected our proposal to limit it to high schools, they were discriminating against traditional families who don’t want their 14-year-old daughter walking past a sex vending machine in school. But putting this in a daycare or preschool…

I’m a grandmother of two beautiful girls, ages 10 and 7, and I can’t imagine them walking down the hall and seeing a colorful condom vending machine with other products inside. Having to explain to a 7-year-old: “Mom, what’s a condom? What’s in that machine?”"