The Georgia state legislature House has passed unanimously a bill to make female genital mutilation (a/k/a “female circumcision”), a particularly brutal form of sexual repression against women in some cultures (which, unfortunately, has been brought into the US among some groups). All fine and well.
But at the last minute, someone happened to mention to one of the sponsors something about female genital piercing — which, while it give me the wiggins, is, after all, a voluntary act by adults, and is arguably not substantially differerent from, say, ear piercing or navel piercing or other less-shuddery sorts of things.
Well, we can’t have that sort of thing going on amidst the flower of Georgia’s fairer sex!
Amendment sponsor Rep. Bill Heath, R-Bremen, was slack-jawed when told after the vote that some adults seek the piercings.
“What? I’ve never seen such a thing,” Heath said. “I, uh, I wouldn’t approve of anyone doing it. I don’t think that’s an appropriate thing to be doing.”
So they made that illegal, too. Because, after all, the law is there solely to keep people from doing inappropriately outlandish things that make legislators go “Eewwww” …
The bill still has to be compromised with the previously passed Senate version, in particular over the piercing amendment. Since it’s limited to a voluntary adult activity and only applies to women doing it, it likely wouldn’t stand up to constitutional review, but let’s hope that folks get over their wiggins and keep it from distracting from a real problem.
(via MeFi)
Wow, that is really sad. I hope Georgia’s SC puts the judicial smack down on this.
Does this mean that male genital modification is legal but not female? Doesn’t sound much different legally from making women wear head scarves but not men. Clear discrimination case, it seems to me…