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Indiana Republican lawmakers voted Wednesday to prohibit Indiana University from using any state money to support its sexual research institution after a far-right legislator unleashed disputed allegations of child exploitation by its founder and famed mid-20th century researcher Alfred Kinsey.
The Indiana House voted 53-34 to block state funding toward the Kinsey Institute, which has long faced criticism from conservatives for its ongoing research and the legacy of Kinsey’s work that they blame for contributing to liberalized sexual morals, including more acceptance of homosexuality and pornography.
Alfred Kinsey, who died in 1956, produced groundbreaking sex-behavior studies in 1948 and 1953 and was portrayed by Liam Neeson in the 2004 film “Kinsey.”
Republican Rep. Lorissa Sweet claimed that some of Kinsey’s research was child exploitation as she argued for an amendment to the state budget bill against funding for the institute.
“By limiting the funding to Kinsey Institute through Indiana University’s tax dollars, we can be assured that we are not funding ongoing research committed by crimes.” Sweet said.
Democratic Rep. Matt Pierce, whose Bloomington district includes the university campus, responded that Sweet’s claims were “based on old unproven allegations of conspiracies that did not exist,” calling them “warmed-over internet memes that keep coming back.”
Pierce said the university maintained a department that ensured all research involving humans met federal laws and that the Kinsey Institute aimed to better understand human sexuality, including how to treat and prevent sexual predators and pedophiles.
An Indiana University spokesman and the institute’s director didn’t immediately comment on the vote.
Seven Republican House members joined all Democrats present in voting against Sweet’s proposal, which specifically prohibits the use of state money for expenses including the institute’s on-campus facilities, research work, utilities, office supplies and maintenance of research photographs or films.
Pierce said the institute’s funding was being exploited as a “culture war” issue and that it would simply create bookkeeping problems for the university to use sources such as outside grant funding or student tuition to support it.
The fate of the Kinsey funding prohibition might not be decided until a final version of the state budget is voted upon by lawmakers in late April.
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MAGA’s are really focused on the important issues this year! 🙄
You mean like the worst disaster since Three Mile Island happening in our state next door, but Biden’s FEMA won’t step foot there, nor will Hoosier hero Buttigieg, even as he’s overseen a disproportionate number of hazmat train derailings in the last two years?
At the very least, we can hope that with all the money we’re sending his way, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is able to afford the best cocaine. Maybe even Mitch McConnell’s stash.
Lauren – it is embarrassing that you do not understand how the defense budget works… Republicans unanimously approved the defense budget that has billions set aside for fighting wars for countries like Ukraine. Stop supporting being a communist and supporting regimes like Russia
The ohio governor said he did not want the Feds help – so now you do not believe in states rights?!?
You are just repeating fascist talking points – move to Cuba if you hate the structure of the united states so much.
Yes, Buttigieg should have rolled back all those Trump-era deregulation moves like getting rid of safety audits and requiring better brakes for trains. Of course, if Trump hadn’t rolled back those rules … wouldn’t have been a problem, would there?
JJ – Lauren loves some Putin. You know, Putin, the guy so secure in his leadership capabilities he’s throwing every potential replacement out of a tall building. Russians should take to playing that disco chestnut “it’s raining men” as a protest song.
Russia can have peace when they get out of Crimea.
As usual, Lauren is ill-informed about many things.
Example: President Obama introduced (along with a bunch of other new safety rules) a regulation that would have required trains to swap out what the then head of the Federal Railroad Administration likened to a “Civil War–era braking system.” But the rules came under fire from the rail industry, including Norfolk Southern, as being too expensive.
So President Trump – surprise! – rescinded them because he said cost would be higher than the benefits. During his visit to East Palestine, he never mentioned that.
“It’s the height of hypocrisy for Trump to feign concern for the community of East Palestine after years of openly mocking and rolling back environmental safeguards,” said Sara Chieffo, a vice president with the environmental group League of Conservation Voters. “Trump bent over backwards to cater to corporate polluters at every turn and put East Palestine and other communities directly in harm’s way.”
Amazing how one comment got hijacked with a slew of whataboutisms. Get job deflecting the debate into nonsensical territory.
Kinsey: Junk science, a sexual pervert and one of the founders of the decline of our culture. Every major problem we have in our culture can be connected to the “sexual revolution” of men like Kinsey and Hefner. The breakdown of the family, poverty, crime, etc. Any objective liberal and conservative with some basic research can see and know this.
Would that same basic “research” also tell us that somehow only teaching abstinence in schools is appropriate as well? News flash…just because it has the word Sex or a variation thereof, does not make it automatically morally wrong.
Yes!! Just look at history. Clearly there was no crime, poverty or family problems before Kinsey and the “sexual revolution”. LOL
Steve M., you’re no fun.
What a non-sequitur, to take a post about the Kinsey institute and bring up a train derailment and the war in Ukraine. Comments sections use to be of some value before they devolved into partisan potshots with no hope of returning to the main subject. (yes I realize that I’m commenting on comment sections).
“the Kinsey Institute aimed to better understand human sexuality, including how to treat and prevent sexual predators and pedophiles.”
These Lawmakers don’t like being investigated.
The way I see this is that the Kinsey Institute might be the one place where research that would provide data on all of the culture war anti-LGBTQ legislation that is being pushed by Republicans and it might prove them wrong, so preemptively shut them down.