This story has me a bit mystified, but it promises that our steady stream of bizarre political stories will continue unabated in 2016. There is a controversy in New Hampshire where Republican Rep. Josh Moore addressed a proposed exception to nursing mothers in a bill to criminalize showing breasts in public. Moore tweeted “If it’s a woman’s natural inclination to pull her (breast) out in public, then you should have no problem with a man’s inclination to stare at it and grab it.” It was clearly meant as a joke but he was not the only one to attack a female legislator who raised the issue of criminalizing breastfeeding under the law.
Equally curious is the objection that reportedly led to the tweet from another legislator. State Rep. Amanda Bouldin, a Democrat, objected that the law was sexist for singling out women and did not include an exception for nursing: “”The very least you could do is protect a mother’s right to FEED her child.”
Moore could have simply criticized Bouldin for not reading the bill which already had such an exception. Instead, he sent this weird tweet.
As if to show that Moore could not just assume the title of creepiest legislator, State Rep. Al Baldasaro, a Republican, also tweeted: “No disrespect, but your nipple would be the last one I would want to see … You want to turn our family beach’s into a pervert show.”
Given the past problems of Republicans dragging down their party in election years with sexist or misogynistic comments, Moore likely has Republicans cringing in this early primary state.
I am assuming that Merrimack New Hampshire is the only district in the state without a single female voter or Moore may wish to tweet less.
Source: WMUR
There is actually a constitutional legal argument here. Can a government official or agency apply the laws “unequally” between men and women in regards to obscenity?
Men don’t receive penalties from government agencies for similar actions. Obscenity laws are also highly subjective depending on locality. There might be an interesting case for ACLU attorneys.
It should also be noted that other parts of the world aren’t so prudish in their government practices but have LESS sexual crimes and violence than us Puritan Americans.
Reblogged this on Dave Alexander & Company — Ukuleledave and David Edgren and commented:
Another “dim bulb” politician. Are they all this stupid? Have they always been this dumb?
Perversity is also in the eye of the beholder. That politician is kinda scary. At what age did he stop developing emotionally – 13?
Woman who breast feed are naturally prepared 24/7. No need for bottles. That’s the whole point of it. A mother nursing her child is a beautiful sight – but I realize that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Bam Bam:
Having just gone through this 4 years ago, I can tell you that some breastfed babies reject the bottle. Lactation consultants recommend to avoid nipple confusion at least in the beginning, and then introduce bottles later. I used a breast pump in the beginning, and then abandoned it as a pain unless my mom was babysitting. A pump can be uncomfortable for some, and it also feels a bit like you’re a dairy cow. Plus there’s more to wash. I would try to multitask at home while that thing was going, loudly, and it was pretty funny. And it takes a while to pump. It’s so easy when your child is hungry to just feed him. Instant gratification, and it’s warm. The actual process of breastfeeding is also more soothing to the child than expressed milk in a bottle.
Also, the composition of your breastmilk is different morning, noon, and night. It adapts to your baby’s needs. I don’t think it matters that much, and expressed milk is perfectly fine. But it’s interesting how fine tuned our bodies are.
But, you’re right, a lot of moms bring expressed breast milk with them when they’re out and about, especially if they’re going somewhere that breastfeeding is going to be difficult.
Karen S
This question is being posed with no tinge of sarcasm and with all due sincerity:
Why can a woman, who does not breastfeed but has a child still drinking from a bottle, be expected to have the requisite bottles of formula on hand while she and the child are out and about, yet a woman, who chooses to breastfeed, need not take the same steps to express her milk, ahead of time, and tote those bottles around? That mother is, surely, toting a diaper bag. Putting an extra bottle or two into a side pocket is effortless.
This isn’t about the health benefits of mother’s milk. This isn’t about that at all. No one, I believe, would dispute those. It’s also not about a natural bodily function. Parents travel prepared with clean diapers for their babies when they are on the go–why not just come prepared with bottles of formula or breast milk? It would seem to alleviate some of the problems.
Isaac:
It’s all about desensitization. The female ankle was titillating at one point. One has to strike the proper balance between being natural and unconcerned, and Jersey Shore, with no respect.
Nick – who cares about the 2nd Amendment? Our Constitutional Scholar President has a phone and a pen!
Speaking of gun control, we’ve long established that mass murderers and terrorists deliberately choose soft targets, where they are guaranteed unopposed. The only thing that stops them, every time, is either armed police or civilians. And we have also seen an uptick in terrorist attacks. It is highly probable that terrorist attacks on our own soil will be the new norm at some point. But instead of hardening up soft targets, Obama intended to extend the creep of soft targets.
I would like to see us reign in our out of control spending, and free up funding for at least one armed guard at schools, with preferential hiring to police and military. I also would like to see a program similar to our Air Marshals, where teachers who are qualified, trained, and interested, can voluntarily have CC. That would render a degree of uncertainty to any would be murderers, because they would never know which teacher was armed.
Survey (pick one):
__ On our sacred honor this person must not be allowed to continue to live!
__ Oh my God, that’s something HitlerSatanBush would say!
__ Well, I guess I won’t be voting for this fellow.
__ Dude, you probably should not have let those inside words out.
__ Outrage Generator 2016 needs work.
__ Hey, I was just thinking the same thing.
Why did we need a new law against boobs on display in NH? Isn’t there already a public indecency statute? And of course breastfeeding should have the exemption already crafted into this possibly extraneous law.
Breastfeeding, when all goes well, is the healthiest way to feed a child. It’s what we evolved for. I do agree with DBQ that it’s best done under a blanket or shawl, and of course any inadvertent flashes are exempted from public indecency.
I have a young child, and I well remember the days of nursing him under a blanket in my car or some quiet corner. Breastfeeding is thankfully back to being accepted as a normal, healthy way to feed a child. I have also noticed mothers who do not bother with a cover up, and then become outraged when men from teenagers to the elderly get caught staring. Which seems like entrapment. If you don’t want someone openly staring at your breasts, keep them covered. Breastfeeding is natural, and so is attraction to the female form. Of course there is no excuse for unwanted touch, comments, or encroachment.
These politicians’ cringeworthy comments remind me of the paradigm shift that infant formula companies engineered away from breastfeeding. They successfully marketed infant formula as scientifically superior to breastfeeding, which was considered unhygienic, messy, and Third World. Better living through science! And then they made the fatal mistake of marketing formula to Third World countries, such as on the African continent…where they lacked sanitary water supplies crucial to the safety of infant formula. Babies died because they ingested pathogens in their formula, and they failed to receive the colostrum which would have lended some level of protection in a climate with very serious diseases.
When I hear anyone react with disgust to breastfeeding, I suspect the lingering effects of that infant formula industry’s intense marketing campaign against breastfeeding. When I talked about breastfeeding with other women, the only ones who reacted with that instant revulsion were those over 60, who grew up in that era when it was considered peasant and gross. Of course we are blessed to live in an age where we have infant formula for those times when breastfeeding fails, and the mother simply cannot or will not do it. A healthy baby is a success, regardless of which feeding path he arrives by.
I recommend these politicians get a intervention by pro-breastfeeding companies and organizations, such as The Pump Station and La Leche. They will be so blissed out on pro-mom empowerment information that they will be cured. And perhaps freed up to actually make a positive difference in our country.
Sexually repressed Republicans. I LOVE these guys–you have to do Pay Per View to get comedy specials this entertaining.