Oklahoma bill would require 'furries' be picked up from school by parents, animal control
Oklahoma bill would require 'furries' be picked up from school by parents, animal control
I've got to admit that Republicans are always finding new and creative ways to be outrageously villainous and hateful
Being a politician is all about getting attention. The more outrageous the bill or the thing the bill is addressing the more attention. This bill will hopefully never pass, but here we are talking about it.
And projection that a bunch of them are probably into furries, or domination, or both.
We clearly need Barney Frank’s ‘expose em when they oppress’ tactics back in the house.
On one hand, this has got to be public trolling. On the other, it’s still a bill calling for a classification of people to be removed from society. If it weren’t so scary it would be funny.
anthropomorphic behavior
Anyone else morbidly curious about what happens if they don't fix the bill's wording and accidentally ban "human-shaped behavior" at school?
SSSHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
How ironic. By trying to make people not act like animals, they force everyone to behave like animals.
Oklahoma conservatives vs word with more than 3 syllables challenge, who will win?
My thoughts too!
This is going to really suck for the school mascot.
How does Oklahoma have nothing else to legislate on?
They have plenty, but they'd rather distract from society's issues as much as possible so their arctic temperature IQ constituents don't realize how bad they have it
If they can keep everyone distracted by The Gays™ or whatever other sexual deviancy the redhats can dream up, then maybe people won't notice the roads falling apart or the useless police, or more importantly, which people are stealing all the money.
Not saying this justifies it (kinda the opposite), but there's a massive furry community in Oklahoma. They even used to have very large conventions there (still might?)
Oklahoma where the furries come yiffing down the planes
At the same time, this douchebag wants to specifically target kids who are playing pretend to make their miserable lives bearable, just to distract from real issues like trans bills, don't say gay, and governmental corruption.
Ran out of things to ban
Humphrey's bill, House Bill 3084, would ban "students who purport to be an imaginary animal or animal species, or who engage in anthropomorphic behavior commonly referred to as furries at school" from participating in class and school activities.
This is, hands down, the worst description of furries I have ever read in my entire life.
Hell, it sounds like something Kindergarteners have been doing since forever.
I used to pretend to be a monster at that age. Would they have to call Monster Control?
(I was a nice monster, like on Sesame Street.)
So what I'm hearing is if I tell the teacher I'm a platypus I don't have to go to class?
Guaranteed if this law got passed there would be a high school somewhere where the entire student body shows up wearing cat ears.
Ironically also means that it basically wouldn't apply to anyone unless that person specifically wants it to. Performative outrage bill.
yeah you see you can't do the intelligent thing of just saying "you have to come to school with normal clothes on" which is literally what countries with a brain did. Also this is generally left to the school to set up. In France the law just says that a school is allowed to implement rules regarding clothing. Just simply think of P.E clothing. The law has a couple safeguard like you can't ban a specific outfit for being from another culture (obvious) and the rest is left for the school to decide
Like basically every school in the US has a dress code already. Don't get this twisted into something else, this is purely performative nonsense by some backwoods inbred redneck.
"What is my purport?"
"You are a furry"
"No"
I mean the impression I had for like a decade was essentially this. Then a guy sent me links on how to be his specific type of fantasy creature. It was sergel or sergal iirc. It had some really weird backstory and lore to the species detailing how they were warlords or something and I was really weirded out. It was very much like how some kids I went to school with would loose it if you told them that they weren't whatever comic or movie character they were hyperfixated on, only more socially awkward and adults doing it.
Anyway I feel like that's as close as you can get without reading out someones entire backstory novel.
...yeah that sounds about right for sergals, tbh
Generally speaking, once you get past the "traditional" species like foxes, rabbits, cats, etc., and start getting more into the esoteric fantasy/scifi species like sergals, protogens, and yinglets, the people who create characters for those species tend to fall into one of two camps:
Funny story, the person who originally designed protogens tried to be the first type, but pretty much everyone ignored him and just did their own thing anyway
Sergal
It's originally from a Japanese series or something I'm not really well versed into that specific lore
How would you describe furries?
The above description would fit many many circumstances that are not furry related or problematic at all. Saying "I'm a cat. no, really" or meowing or licking your hand would all fit that description, (except not really because the word anthropomorphic is used wrong), but don't mean a person is a furry. Moreover these behaviors by themselves don't cause any problems unless you imagine a bunch of other stuff that's not included in this definition.
So it is an overbroad law that allows prosecutors to apply it selectively and at the same time is very hard to defend against.
A better definition for the purpose of the law would describe some behavior that actually causes damage to society, like disrupting class or arresting kids at school for saying they are a cat.
A better definition of a furry would probably include some kind of pattern of behavior and the extent to which it impacts daily life, as here
I wouldn't use a definition that includes some kid prancing around race track pretending to be a horse. That's just kids being kids and politicians need to stop sexualizing them.
Imagine being an animal control guy and having a school seriously call you and ask you to take a stranger's child because of that child's participation in a subculture.
Pretty sure that will leave the animal control people open to being charged with botched citizen arrests. Not sure what Oklahoma's particular arrest laws are like but for most States you are pretty limited in what you can do to perform one and the standards of places you can use to detain an arrested person in are usually at least required to be humane and actively monitored.
The answer to "Little Timmy wore a tiger costume to school for Halloween do you have a cage available? " should properly be "Get fucked authoritarian scum I have actual work to do."
Lawmaker: "If these flurries think they're animals, we're gonna treat them like animals! "
Furries: "Yes, that's exactly what we want."
Lawmaker, 5 minutes later: "Who is responsible for this farce??"
For the love of god, please don't. You're just making them hornier.
owo
UWU
Next we're gonna make the furries wear a collar. That'll show 'em!
I'm sorry you know this.
And it is true.
Moral panic.
The right isn't happy unless it's panicked about some moral outrage. In the absence of anything to be panicked about they make things up to be panicked about.
I just described this phenomenon to a friend of mine today. We were talking about how racism evolved by the same people to be disgust against gay/trans folk. I explained to him that conservatives require an outgroup to hate on in order to operate and be happy.
This mother fucker took a second and said "Do you think modern conservative discrimination was caused by the fall of the Soviet union? I mean, when communism was a big threat everybody was united and happy hating the soviets"
My boy really trying to paint the red scare as a good thing
technically he was right. Indeed if we all hate communist, we don't hate gay or blacks. Whomstever The red scare was used to fuck over those same folks
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic
It's been going on for a long time.
He hit on a thicc furry who resoundingly rejected him and never let it go.
Imagine if this passes and the next day the entire school staff dresses up as furries in protest. "Okay Timmy you see that person with the fox outfit on? That's your teacher today."
honestly small children might love that
Those masks are expensive as shit though, aren't they?
Yeah, a decent one is going to be $300-500. For a partial, the head is the most expensive part, and cheaping out on it is a great way to get some S-tier nightmare fuel. Full suits are minimum $1000, but I'd say a good one is at least double that, and they can go into the $5k+ range.
You can source all-natural fursuits from your local animal shelter!
I have a friend who makes mascot costumes. She and her husband sometimes wear them out for entertainment. Little kids absolutely ADORE seeing human-sized Pokemon walking around the mall, bowling alley, or the like.
I see all these silly rules being floated and part of me almost wishes I was back in high school so I could be really annoying.
Can't wait to see the reporting on the fallout from this, if it goes forward.
Bureaucratic backlash from department heads at Animal Control, and whichever state administration or department that their chain of authority ultimately flows down from.
Overzealous Animal Control officer who assaults a child that a school administrator called in for pickup.
Mass student protests of dozens of kids going to school as furries
And that's just a few off the top of my head. The possibilities are endless.
Mass student protests of dozens of kids going to school as furries
This sounds like the kind of protest id participate in when I was in school. As a parent I'd totally wear a fur suit to pick up my kids as a form of protest
For real, shit-disturbing teenage me would have immediately flipped from "furries are dumb and weird" to "what's the minimum requirement to count as a furry" as soon as I found out that animal control would have to pick us up.
The thought of an old-school dog catcher chasing me with a net while I ran away wearing floppy dog ears is just too amazing to pass up.
What about a fish. Could I be a fish? Oh, what a time to be grown up and with kids of my own instead of being able to be a ridiculous jackass.
Can't drive with it on though. At least not morally and legally
Who is Oklahoma Rep. Justin Humphrey?
Humphrey has made headlines in recent years in his advocacy of prison reform, capital punishment reform and rural development.
Oh I see now, he's a dumb fuck white, rural, racist dumbass who saw something on the internet that made him feel funny and then tried to pray and then legislate the feelings away.
Also more on Justin Humphrey via wikipedia:
Humphrey's efforts to introduce cockfighting legislation[27] has led to the outcry from animal rights advocates[28] and the former attorney general.[29] Oklahoma has been called the "Cockfighting Capitol of the United States."[30] HB 2530, pushed by Justin Humphrey, died on April 13, 2023, for the second year in a row. Tulsa District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler said he was glad cockfighting remained a felony.[31] Transphobia and homophobia
Humphrey has made multiple transphobic comments. In an email responding to a constituent Humphrey said "I understand transgender people have mental illness".[32] This view is not supported by the World Health Organization or the American Psychiatric Association.[32] In an interview published after the incident on April 15, 2021, Humphrey doubled down by saying "I want to tell your audience there is no transgender. There is male and there is female. And transgender would be a mental health issue... So those people that say I'm bigoted, I will say you're insane and you're doing the people wrong by doing that."[32] Freedom Oklahoma, an LGBT advocacy group, denounced Humphrey's comments calling them "a long-debunked myth".[32]
Humphrey was quoted as saying “You’re dang skippy I’ll take my kid to a chicken fighting before I’m gonna take them to see a drag queen."[31]
On the flip side, myself and my high school friends way, way back in the day would have a had a field day with this type of dumbass law. Would be a shame if this passed and students were to test the law and their parents and their state/local traffic engineers who probably didn't think of this type of dumbass shit ever happening.
When I was in high school, for some reason I will never know, the library had a concrete box of sand next to the two staircases that went to the library's second level (it was a pretty big school). The mascot was the Panthers, and I always wanted to do a senior prank where I put fake dog shit in the sandbox and put a sign up that said 'the panther's litter box.' Sadly, I never got around to it. But if this had been a law when I was in high school, I was such an asshole punk kid that I would have taken a shit there myself while meowing like a cat just to make a point.
So, presumably he'd be okay with the furries if they were fighting each other?
Wait, wait, let him cook
I wonder if this will be the end of school mascots in Oklahoma
$10 says the state legislator responsible for the bill is whatever the most-outlandish type of furry possible is.
Probably one of those weird fascist ones that everyone else in the fandom wishes didn't exist.
Right?! Furries aren't even remotely on the public conscience so how the fuck does he even know about them otherwise
Dude just caught a rerun of the csi episode and went into panic mode
Nazi furry.
As a sad citizen of Oklahoma, I wish I could upvote you more than once.
I wouldn't joke about that if I were you, vote manipulation is a big problem on Lemmy and since the tools for detection aren't very good (if even there at all) it might cause people to suspect you of cheating the system.
Jesus christ do these law makers just have nothing going on? We should really be revoking their pay for what is a complete dumpster fire of a waste of our taxes. I don't want my money going to some white racist dumb fuck basing reality off of Fox news rage articles in his Facebook feed.
Furry here and just want to say: isn't this entire discussion super disrespectful to the important job that animal control personnel actually do?
Like, animal control has an important role in protecting communities from animals and helping animals that are injured. They shouldn't have to be dragged into this stupid outrage farming.
If I worked for animal control and some dipshit school administer asked be to come collect a human child from their school, they would receive the following with the minimum amount of tact needed to keep my job:
I'd like to think most of the people actually employed as animal control officers would respond the same way.
I work in animal control.
It wouldn't even get to that point because as soon as our admin called me, I'd laugh and refuse the job. No animal control person will do this, it's a fucking ludicrous idea and absolutely filled with issues to be sued over.
Kid doesn't willfully come? Do I use a catch pole and drag him out of school? He'll be dead before we get to the front doors. Everybody is sued.
What if the kid attacks me, tries to stab me etc because I'm basically attempting to execute the function of the police with no training (yes yes, I know the cops have fuck all training but at least they are legally able to restrain etc, they are in the legal position to deal with it). I'll take an angry dog over a kid with a knife any day.
In short- the guy is an absolute fuckwit and this idea makes no sense.
It's for show, pandering to the right wing base. They want those they deem as lesser to suffer.
It won't actually happen.
Government is speedrunning a civil war by punishing 2 groups of people at the same time, for absolutely no reason.
My daughter got bullied by other kids for being a furry because she likes leather chokers and they were saying she was wearing a dog collar.
Considering how much school administrations support bullies (while claiming to be anti-bullying), I'm glad we weren't in Oklahoma.
We had to take her out of school due to all of the bullying anyway, but that would have made it even worse.
School administrations often are the bullies.
but the fun stuff is that they manage to beccome the bullies not out of will but because of their sheer lack of competence and backbone
HR for children
My boyfriend used to wrap his collar twice around his wrist and wear it as a bracelet. I've taken to it myself and it seems like a great way to let your freak flag fly while not pushing social boundaries too hard.
That was her way of doing that. Now that she's no longer in that school, she wears a spiked collar and a leather punk jacket as part of her wardrobe. She was pretty much the only kid in her school listening to the Ramones.
Also, iirc didn't you disagree with me about students having the option to opt out a schooling several months ago?
It's not legal for animal control to pick up a person even in Oklahoma, right?
we cannot legalize drugs because drugs are illegal
At first I thought this was satire, but I'm seeing similar articles in tons of other places like Huffpost and Vice. So this is actually true?! Stay strong, my friends...
(I don't have a fursuit or see myself as an animal or anything, but this is crazy. And a total waste of resources too. Hopefully voters are educated enough to see that this is absurd.)
It's true that such a bill was introduced, but wacky bills are introduced all the time. This is proposed legislation, they haven't even voted on it yet, and it's extremely unlikely to pass.
But i think it's also true that you can tell where legislator's minds are based on what wacky bills they introduce.
As far as I can tell, Humphrey's job appears to be one where he proposes bullshit legislation ad nauseam, just to waste the legislature's time.
What bugs me about bills like this is that many state legislatures have limits on how many bills a single member can introduce per session. Lots of good stuff gets put on hold because nobody is willing to use one of their slots on it. Then some asshats use their slots to introduce shit like this.
Oooh harder daddy
I wonder how the dude who wrote the bill would fare against real animals, considering he's so afraid of people dressed like them.
My guess is not too well. He’d crumble into a tiny ball and wait for it to be over. Man just when you think someone in the US can’t make things look any worse than they already are…
feed him to the lions
🦁
The Romans had the right idea.
I’ve been to Anthrocon. Normal people love furries. Pittsburgh literally turns out with their kids to watch the furry parade and take pictures with fur suiters, lol.
Dressing up as a cartoon animal is the most Disney level hobby imaginable, disconnect from 2003-era 4chan.
So he is just trolling to get headlines and get his name in the papers.
I once met a person that was made to believe that "animal-kin" children were being given their own litter boxes in a similar way that transgender children would get their own bathrooms.
The issue with the people who think like this is that they see a few things not like them (a few transgender people) and extrapolate it to utter nonsense (millions of children declaring themselves animals and demanding litter boxes).
If they would think about what they are saying; they would reliaze that their claims are impossible. But then again, they are in their own reality where everything they do makes sense..?
I'm sorry for using such an absurd example but it's a thing older conservatives I know actually believe in.
Oh you have no idea how far that rumor spread. School systems had to issue public denials. One not that far from me did-
There were apparently some schools that had cat litter around because children can't go to toilets during school shooting lockdowns, which is terrible in its own way.
That link explained what a fury is using the word "fursona." 😂
Also, thank you. I guess that rumor has to come from somewhere. Though the redirect for the article of where the tumor came from was behind a pay wall.
I know I'm late to the party, but my go-to refutation is "Ok, name one school that's doing that. Go ahead and look it up on your phone."
Then point out if a single school actually did have litter boxes for the kids the name of the school and everyone involved would be easy to find. It's not something that could be kept secret: just one person has to say something -- a kid talking to their relative, faculty, a parent, etc. Once that happened FOX, OANN, etc would be on that like flies on shit ... and they would name and shame.
But they aren't, because it's bullshit.
Unrelated to the actual content but why is removing words to add a super confusing comma so common for headlines? I had no idea what this was talking about until I read some for context because that comma turns the headline into nonsense
Well that shows everything I hate about headlines
I'm temporarily unlocking this post again, but I'll be keeping an eye on it. I don't want to see it descend into vitriolic lashing out at one another again. Come on, people, keep it civil. This is supposed to be a fun and welcoming community for everyone, and I want it to stay that way.
And assholes should be required to be picked up by proctologists.
It's interesting that his official government website doesn't really have any basic defenses. It allows you to message him without even making up a fake address in his district. Doesn't even seem to check to see if you enter in bogus information like a phone number with all 5s. Also interesting that outside of hours calls to his office go right to a non-full mailbox.
I do hope no one just calls outside of their posted hours and leave long messages talking about nothing or uses the website to contact him.
Please no one do things like that.
Bro, I don't even care. This shit is hilarious. Pass it.
They're doing it all wrong, though.
If the furries start acting out, just toss a pokeball at them & they'll act however you want!
Bro, I wanna get a poke ball for this express purpose. Just gotta make sure it won't shatter on the floor. I don't see a lot of futures basically ever, but when I do, I'll be ready.
This will be devastating to all those horse girls too 😟
Gone are the days when your buddy is like "Hey check it out I drew you as a snow leopard!" at recess. That shit is now contraband.
Fucking hilarious!
I thought April 1 came early...
We gotta test people as how they identify amirite?
Yep if I slap ur balls and you say "owo" then I'm calling animal control
If you slap my balls, animal control won't get there fast enough to save you.
Lol I read about this while hanging out at a furry con after fursuiting for five hours
art station : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/yD2Jy9
Not gonna lie, if a Furry told me they got arrested by animal control I'd be impressed.
Is there anyone at cons who plays that role? Like walking around with a big net and a villainous smirk?
Considering fur is a kink for a bunch of people, I'd say this is entirely likely. Even more so: your animal control Dom is also a furry.
This is a thing at burning man every year. A group goes out as animal control with nets and catches furries. It’s an ongoing feud
Considering how terminally online one has to be to find themselves on this platform, I'm surprised how little any of y'all know about furries
And well, it's not literally animals in that sense. At least not the entire community.
Kind of like getting a speeding ticket on a bicycle...
That happened to me once! I was 15 and going to school, was riding a Lotus Eclair I'd fixed up. I entered the school zone and wanted to see if I could get over 25 mph. But there was a cop hiding and I got a ticket. I had to tell my parents, and I think they were impressed with my 31 in a 25 speeding ticket.
The best part was having to go to court, and the judge asking how I got a Lotus (she was thinking of a car) and then upon learning the truth, asking the officer why he was wasting his time stopping a kid on a bicycle.