State Rep. Alvin Holmes (D-Montgomery) has introduced a bill that tackles that pressing problem of the State of Alabama. No, not high unemployment or crime or foreclosures. He is moving a bill that would ban saggy pants. That’s right, the legislature of Alabama is close to passing a statewide ban on saggy pants. The only thing more questionable than its constitutionality is its necessity. While it may put him at odds with Arizona Democratic state Rep. Katie Hobbs to require airbrushing of any saggy images, they both seem to be working off the sense of legislative priorities.
For the record, I find saggy pants to be facially moronic and I will not deny that I find them disturbing. However, I find a lot of things disturbing in the modern culture. I find the song Muskrat Love to be deeply disturbing, but I do not advocate banning Muskrat Love or calling for the arrest of Captain & Tennille . . . well, not banning Muskrat Love.
Holmes bill passed the House by a 59-0 vote on Thursday. It only applies to wearing saggy pants in public. You can still prance around in your saggies at home.
Source: ABC
Gene H.-
The last guy who came for the bobcats was “Stumpy” Johnson.
Aye, Henman, but I bet it’ll be a different story when they come for the bobcats.
An American Tragedy…2012
First they came for the baggy pants,
and I didn’t speak out because I still had my oversize orange shoes.
Then they came for the oversize orange shoes,
and I didn’t speak out because I still had my red stick-on nose.
Then they came for the red stick-on noses,
and I didn’t speak out because I still had my slapstick.
Then they came for the slapsticks,
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
(Inspired by and plagiarized from Pastor Martin Niemoller)
Elaine, I don’t know the laws in other states, but in California it is assault and battery if a physician or nurse touches a patient without consent. The procedure now being legislated would be rape by instrumentality. One law would be in direct conflict with the other, in requiring doctors to commit rape, in order to obey the new law. If this passes, I’d recommend that doctors take it to court.
Alabama, as usual, lags behind the brilliant progressives in the Florida legislature, who adopted a baggy pants prohibition a year ago. And I’ll bet those folks are still using 3G.
Curious,
A vaginal ultrasound is very different from the usual type of ultrasound performed on a pregnant woman.
One has to consider what effect a personhood bill could have on a woman who suffers a miscarriage/spontaneous abortion. I wrote a post last year about Bobby Franklin, a Georgia legislator who introduced legislation that would have required proof that a woman’s miscarriage was the result of natural causes. If a woman couldn’t prove that, she could could have been charged with a felony if the legislation passed:
The Right’s War on Women Continues…at the State Level
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/02/19/the-rights-war-on-women-continues-at-the-state-level/
My thoughts: This kind of personhood/anti-woman legislation is scary. It makes me think we could be heading toward some type of dystopian society–at least for women–if we aren’t ever vigilant.
NSAfixer. Steppin for TalkinDog here:
I would wiggle a jury trial on a prosecution for wearing saggy pants. As defense counsel I would wear shorts so as not to appear too saggy pants. Then I would subpoena the sponsor of the bill to court. Ask her to tell the jury just what is wrong with this kids saggy pants. Are they below his Anthony Weiner? Do they mock his Aftro hair style? Do they offend the Confederate Flag? Do they offend the Ten Commandments?
It would be a fun trial.
Hope you’re right, Mespo. Another reason I detest the politics in this state. The throwbacks are always trying to one up each other. And the one-term-only governor never has to take responsibility for consequences.
——————-
On the subject of the lead post: “This is a serious country, people, and don’t you ever forget it.”
— Alfred E. Newman (I think)
Elaine M:
I suspect a quick injunction barring effect of this law until the grown-ups at the Robinson/Merhige Federal Building can knock it out all together. It’s just the General Assembly pandering to the torch and pitchfork crowd again. It’s quite the sport now that the Republicans have an practical majorities in both the VA House and VA Senate. We’re all wondering when they will pass a state holiday honoring Massive Resistance. Anytime now. And if Gov. Bob McDonnell want to be VP on the Romney ticket, he’ll sign it, of course.
Elaine, Thank you for pointing out the need for an invasive ultrasound if very early in the pregnancy. I think there are about a half dozen states that already require ultrasounds and I hadn’t connected the dots. I guess states can regulate that. But what about this “personhood” at conception – which would seem to eliminate all abortion? Your thoughts on that…
Elaine,
Don’t forget this is lunch time for some…and some reason or another I just lost my appetite….
People take issue with this?
Curious,
Read this:
Virginia’s Proposed Ultrasound Law Is an Abomination
Under the new legislation, women who want an abortion will be forcibly penetrated for no medical reason. Where’s the outrage?
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/02/virginia_ultrasound_law_women_who_want_an_abortion_will_be_forcibly_penetrated_for_no_medical_reason.single.html#pagebreak_anchor_2
Excerpt:
This week, the Virginia state Legislature passed a bill that would require women to have an ultrasound before they may have an abortion. Because the great majority of abortions occur during the first 12 weeks, that means most women will be forced to have a transvaginal procedure, in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced. Since a proposed amendment to the bill—a provision that would have had the patient consent to this bodily intrusion or allowed the physician to opt not to do the vaginal ultrasound—failed on 64-34 vote, the law provides that women seeking an abortion in Virginia will be forcibly penetrated for no medical reason. I am not the first person to note that under any other set of facts, that would constitute rape under state law.
What’s more, a provision of the law that has received almost no media attention would ensure that a certification by the doctor that the patient either did or didn’t “avail herself of the opportunity” to view the ultrasound or listen to the fetal heartbeat will go into the woman’s medical record. Whether she wants it there or not. I guess they were all out of scarlet letters in Richmond.
So the problem is not just that the woman and her physician (the core relationship protected in Roe) no longer matter at all in deciding whether an abortion is proper. It is that the physician is being commandeered by the state to perform a medically unnecessary procedure upon a woman, despite clear ethical directives to the contrary. (There is no evidence at all that the ultrasound is a medical necessity, and nobody attempted to defend it on those grounds.) As an editorial in the Virginian-Pilot put it recently, “Under any other circumstances, forcing an unwilling person to submit to a vaginal probing would be a violation beyond imagining. Requiring a doctor to commit such an act, especially when medically unnecessary, and to submit to an arbitrary waiting period, is to demand an abrogation of medical ethics, if not common decency.”*
What !!! With the airbrushing of models problem running amok they have time to fool with saggy pants. Saints preserve us.
Well….Maybe they can air brush this out….Or….maybe they can declare them enemy combatants and detain them for national security purposes….
Off Topic Inquiry…..
Surprised JT hasn’t written on the new “Personhood” law in VA. I’m anxious to know if it is probable that it will be challenged in the courts and if you expect that the challenge will be successful.
How is the amount of saggalocity in the pantaloons determined?
Are officers going to be trained to evaluate the difference between 1 inch of sag, and 2 inches of sag?
Just what will be the threshold of measurement of droop to snugness be in determining probable cause for ticketing or arrest?
Oh! Hell I can’t even continue this asinine post.
AY,
A plumber’s crack is cleavage of another kind.
Otteray,
All men with beer bellies better beware the saggy pants police!
If this won’t fix a plumbers crack….I am unsure what will…The audacity of them folks….
I am sure the plumbers may have something to say about this bill.