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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.
Not gonna lie, if a Furry told me they got arrested by animal control I'd be impressed.
I've got to admit that Republicans are always finding new and creative ways to be outrageously villainous and hateful
It’s because furries are overwhelmingly queer and often used as a stand in for fear mongering about trans people (ex: the “litter boxes in schools” rumor).
Furries are the next target after trans people.
I would say it’s more that they recognize furries are largely a queer subculture (regardless of the fact that straight furries exist) and correctly recognize it as less objectionable to most people’s sensibilities to say you’re getting furries removed from schools by animal control than it is to say you’re getting queer kids removed from schools by animal control.
It sounds really outlandish until you remember that in the 80s, DnD was used to make everyone afraid of a literal Satan, and we ended up with children testifying they were flown across the country and back to participate in Satanic rituals or flushed down toilets into hidden chambers where people were sacrificing live animals to the Dark Lord in the 8-9 hours they were at daycare.
People went to prison over this.
In the early 90s my mom was convinced Satanic women got pregnant and gave birth to babies to murder in rituals, and nobody could prove it because they gave birth outside a hospital and no record of the children existed.
I get some of the 80s/90s nostalgia but SO much of it was just actual hell lol.
Not to mention wrong. Sounds like a result of the litterbox panic from a little while ago.
Which stemmed from an active shooter measure that would have allowed kids to relieve themselves without out having to leave the safety of their hiding place.
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.
Fascism demands outlandish "enemies" in order to justify punishment as policy. Usually, no suitable ones exist, so they are created through outlandish fantasy.
it's both fucking insane and scary. remember that furry hate has always been thinly veiled homophobia
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!!!!!!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lawmaker: "If these flurries think they're animals, we're gonna treat them like animals! "
Furries: "Yes, that's exactly what we want."
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's not legal for animal control to pick up a person even in Oklahoma, right?
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.)
Oooh harder daddy