Florida to Ban Bestiality, Sagging, Doing Drugs While on Welfare

Elspeth Reeve 9,484 Views May 6, 2011

Florida is diving deep into personal life regulation, with new legislation requiring drug testing for people on welfare and ultrasounds for women seeking abortions. Plus they'd like to stop people from having sex with animals and wearing their pants unfashionably baggy. Florida! Who would imagine this beachy paradise would be such a killjoy?

The Florida state legislature has sent several bills for Gov. Rick Scott to sign Friday. One would require welfare recipients to pass regular drug tests to keep getting benefits. Test positive once and you're cut off for a year. Another bill toughens parental notification requirements for minors seeking abortions--pregnant teens can't go outside their circuit court district to get a judicial waver for such notification. A second abortion bill would force women seeking the medical procedure to get an ultrasound. Scott is expected to sign all three bills, Sunshine State News' Gray Rohrer reports.

Also up for Scott's approval is legislation--seemingly dusted off from the gangsta rap hysteria of the 90s--that forbids students to sag their pants. Remember what "sagging" means? Fifteen years ago, before boys began wearing skintight skinny jeans, they wore really big jeans on their hips, and sometimes their boxers would show. (This was a really big problem before 9/11.) Florida students committing such a fashion faux pas could face suspension under the new legislation.

Notice a slight racial undercurrent running through these bills? Well don't worry. Florida legislators are after redneck stereotypes too. Scott must decide whether to sign an anti-bestiality bill sponsored by state Sen. Nan Rich, who "took up the anti-bestiality fight after a number of cases involving sexual activity with animals in recent years, including a Panhandle man who was suspected of accidentally asphyxiating a family goat during a sex act and the abuse of a horse in the Keys," NBC Miami's Brian Hamacher reports. Having sex with an animal would become a first-degree misdemeanor.

Photos by Malingering and rofanator via Flickr.

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