Derogatory words removed from Idaho laws

BOISE - Gov. C.L. (Butch) Otter signed into law Tuesday a measure that nixes the words "retarded," "lunatic" and the like from Idaho code, saying they are just as hurtful to people with disabilities as racial slurs are to minorities.

The new law replaces outdated language in 73 different laws - including those addressing health and welfare, education and corrections - with more accepted phrases such as "intellectually disabled."

Disability rights advocates said the revisions send a message to regular Idahoans that their government doesn't tolerate disrespect, since words like retarded are used, especially among teenagers, to insult others or describe distaste. Officials in several other states, including Washington and Oregon, have enacted similar laws.

On Tuesday, Otter compared words like retarded to racial slurs Americans used during World War II to describe Japanese people.

Some of the laws with questionable language have been on the books for decades, such as a section of a 1908 law defining people who can't sign a contract for themselves, calling them "idiots."

Others are much more recent, like a section that refers to students enrolled in special needs classes with the term "mental retardation." That law went into effect in 1990.

Bill sponsor Sen. Les Bock, D-Boise, said he didn't realize how pervasive the slang word retarded is until he mentioned the bill in a talk last year about his work as a state lawmaker to junior high students at a charter school in Garden City.

As he began to describe his plans to change code to treat people with disabilities more respectfully, the students interrupted him.

"Oh, you mean 'retard,' like 'you're retarded,' " they responded before giggling, he said. "It was pretty spontaneous. I was surprised."

The term mental retardation is still used by the American Psychiatric Association in its diagnostic manual, a guidebook used by lawyers and doctors to determine if a person is disabled.