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.
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??”
Not gonna lie, if a Furry told me they got arrested by animal control I’d be impressed.
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.
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.
the thing is if they solve the real stuff the don’t have anything to campaign next time
(this work for all parties)
both sides
Really? What is the current moral panic of the Democrats?
I’m personally unhappy with arms being sent to Israel workout approval of shitbox Congress (no typo), and how bad housing and food prices have gotten… But not really a panic, those are very real things.
Not this anti-furry shaming bullshit. What a waste of people’s time for something hurting nobody.
Almost as dumb as that (both sides) argument.
The high cost of living isn’t a moral panic. The satanic panic, the satanic messages in rock music panic, the drag queen story time panic, and the furry litter box panic are moral panics.
For the love of god, please don’t. You’re just making them hornier.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Imagine working for the state and being ordered to engage in a random citizen’s kink.
Yes, I know being a furry isn’t just a kink.
being ordered to engage in a random citizen’s
That’s called oppression. Also furry is an identity, believe it or not.
I’m not buying the “furry isn’t just a kink” thing at all, but please enlighten me. How does it qualify as an identity?
Belonging to a fandom or other special interest community is typically something that is done through self-identification, which is different than identities that are not chosen, but still part of a broader idea of identity. There are plenty of examples of these self-chosen identities: Trekkies, Potterheads, Bronies, Cumberbitches, etc. Simply watching Star Trek doesn’t make you a Trekkie though, it’s a label people apply to themselves when they feel invested in that thing and want to be part of a community of people who feel the same. That’s all. I also hate to tell you that there are themed sex parties at Star Trek conventions too, so does that make being a Trekkie a kink? Is doing the Vulkan salute and telling someone to “live long and prosper” in public forcing that kink on others?
$10 says the state legislator responsible for the bill is whatever the most-outlandish type of furry possible is.
Right?! Furries aren’t even remotely on the public conscience so how the fuck does he even know about them otherwise
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.
it’s both fucking insane and scary. remember that furry hate has always been thinly veiled homophobia
Um no?
Im not straight, I think furries are fucked up. I just wouldn’t ban them for it.
This is a weird amount of preoccupation to have with a subculture of mostly queer people who just watched too much Disney and read too much Warrior Cats or Animorphs as kids.
In general furries embrace their cringe and are unashamed of the stuff they enjoy, can’t say I see anything near as wholesome from the company you keep when you’re hand wringing about sexual degenerates that should be banned from schools.
Gays. Black people. Non Christians. Your exact statement has been said about all of them.
Saying something is fucked up has been said about a lot of things. I’m sure there’s someone who’s said it’s fucked up to put pineapple on a pizza.
Also you do realise those are things people are born as? Whereas no furry was born a non-human.
The fact you would even compare them is a a revile as 4Chan trolls trying to link “maps” to LGBT.
Fascism demands outlandish “enemies” in order to justify punishment as policy. Usually, no suitable ones exist, so they are created through outlandish fantasy.