The next time there’s a group bicycle ride in Missoula, we can only hope the particiants are as discreet as these fine lads and lasses.
Auxilliary editor’s note: Important clarifications have been made to the editor’s note at the bottom of this column.
Poor David Moore. For the past four or five sessions of the Montana Legislature, at least one lawmaker—invariably a Republican, I feel compelled to point out—has made himself a national laughingstock.
Moore, a state House member from Missoula, was catapulted to infamy after he introduced a bill that contained, even in its short summary version, the phrase “private parts.” That is never a good sign, and some of the language included in the full text of the bill made things even worse.
Ed Kemmick
He proposed to amend the definition of indecent exposure to say that a person would be guilty of such a crime for knowingly exposing “the person’s genitals, pubic hair, or anus,” or “the areola or nipple of the person’s breast with anything less than a fully opaque covering while in a public place.”
There is some even stranger language, and any of it might have been enough to bring the national notoriety that our Republican lawmakers seem to crave. But then Moore doubled down by, apparently, joking to a reporter that he’d also like to ban yoga pants.
Moore said he was only joshing*, and he said he has learned that “you can’t kid around with a young reporter.” However that may be, it was the yoga pants reference that comedians, columnists, talking heads and editorial writers around the country latched onto.
All well and good. I am as guilty as anyone of squeezing a laugh out of the pratfalls of our esteemed legislators, but I’m afraid most everyone is missing the point here. Moore introduced his legislation in response to a nude bicycle ride that took place in Missoula last summer.
We may laugh at his ham-handed attempt to define what is inappropriate, but we should also applaud him for trying to clean up, or at least dress up, the public square. The key portion of his proposed bill (which appears to have died in committee) hinged on making it an offense to dress in such a way “that a reasonable person would be offended or alarmed.”
Exactly! I am not categorically opposed to public nudity, despite how ill-advised it is for most people. But I seriously doubt whether you could find anyone in these United Sates as reasonable as your Last Best News correspondent, and damn me if I’m not offended and alarmed at least once a day by what my fellow citizens choose to parade around in.
Moore was on the right track. His mistake was getting all mumbo-jumbo lawyerly and trying to define the indefinable. What this great state—what this whole nation—needs is a comprehensive bill just outright banning very specific items of clothing that are offensive and alarming.
First and most obvious, we need to ban the wearing of pajamas, and by extension slippers, in a public place. This lamentable custom, in equal parts alarming and offensive, is like an advertisement informing the rest of the world that America no longer cares how it looks. It is like telling the world that all the virtues that made America great have been abandoned. It’s like telling the world America is too goddamned lazy to get dressed in the morning.
One trusted consultant called for the banning of scrunchies and sweat pants with words on the butt. I am on board with those ideas, though I might add to the severity of the fine or jail sentence if the words on the butt included the word “pink.”
Another consultant, who makes a clear connection between public apparel and private morality, would prohibit men from wearing NFL or NHL jerseys two sizes too big. He would also prohibit the wearing of backward ball caps unless you are a catcher; elk tooth jewelry unless the elk was killed by you or someone you know; Harley Davidson apparel unless you actually ride a Harley; and any Hard Rock Café T-shirt from an exotic locale.
Why, he asks, should you admit you wasted time and money in Prague replicating a Clevelandesque experience? Why, indeed? Book ’em, Dano!
One friend would ban high heels and neckties on public health grounds. This is straying somewhat from the standard of offensiveness and alarm, but I see his point, particularly in regard to neckties.
My friend seems to have made a study of this, and says neckties, by constricting blood flow to the head, seriously damages the brain. (To adduce just one piece of evidence, Rep. Moore often wears a necktie, as do nearly all his male counterparts in the Legislature.)
One of my daughters argued for a prohibition on an item of clothing I was not even aware of, JNCOs. After seeing a picture of a person so attired, I wonder if a reasonable person could be anything but alarmed.
Lastly, Mrs. Kemmick came up with a tremendous, if somewhat dubious suggestion. Like many of our legislators, she became carried away by a good idea and proceeded to stretch it beyond its original intent. Her idea? Banning the public display of rubber bull testicles, commonly seen hanging from the trailer hitch on big pickup trucks.
True, this has nothing to do with clothing or the lack thereof, but could any number of naked bicyclists be half as offensive as a single pair of rubber bull testicles? Let’s make it a felony.
Rep. Moore, this is your chance to go from laughingstock to hero.
*Editor’s note: Steve Shirley, a retired reporter now in charge of Montanabuzz.com, a daily aggregation of Montana news links, seems to be the only person who actually spoke with Rep. Moore after the yoga-pants story went viral.
That is where I read Moore’s assertion (look in the right-hand column on the Montanabuzz page) that he was simply cracking a joke. I tend to believe him. Also, I noticed that several stories referencing his bill made mention of “buttocks,” possibly because “anus” was too graphic?
I’m no doctor, but there is a big difference between those two parts of the human body. Some reporters can’t take a joke, and some can’t be bothered to be accurate.
One last thing: As far as I could tell, only one news story out of Helena included this puzzling conclusion: “Moore says he believes yoga pants and men’s Speedo-style swim briefs should be illegal in public.”
If he really mentioned Speedos, it’s hard to believe any account of his remarks would have omitted it. Something is odd about this whole thing, and I think Moore, whose actual bill is laughable enough, has been unfairly maligned.
Note on the note: Steve Shirley wrote to clarify several matters, which, had I not been so careless, wouldn’t have needed clarification. Somehow, for instance, I missed all the links embedded in Steve’s piece at Montanabuzz.com!
Here’s the main clarification from Steve: He did not interview Rep. Moore. “In my piece on MontanaBuzz,” Steve said, “I linked to a story by Will Wadley, a KECI reporter out of Missoula, and he’s the one who interviewed Moore and had the quote about not being able to kid around with a young reporter.”
And: “I also linked to another story by MTN’s Sanjay Talwani, who noted that there wasn’t anything in the bill about yoga pants and who talked of Moore joking at the hearing about expanding the obscenity ban to shirtless men and men in Speedos.”
Thanks, Steve. Keep up the good work. I’ll try to make my work more accurate.
