I found the actual text of the bill proposed by Alabama Representative Gerald Allen, the runaway winner of last month's Robert O'Brien Trophy (formerly the Idiot of the Month award). It's pretty ridiculous stuff, and it goes even further than I thought. It even prohibits public universities and colleges in Alabama from using any public money to purchase any books that even recognize homosexuality:
No public funds or public facilities shall be used by any state agency, public school, public library, or public college or university for the purchase, production, or promotion of printed or electronic materials or activities that, directly or indirectly, sanction, recognize, foster, or promote a lifestyle or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws of the state of Alabama.
Apparently, Mr. Allen is unaware of the Lawrence decision, which overruled state sodomy laws. Alabama no longer has laws against sodomy, nor does any other state, because of that decision. And it even bans any material that merely recognizes homosexuality. Which means that even universities can no longer use any book in any class that even recognizes homosexuality. No more books about homosexuality. No more books that even have a character that happens to be gay, even if it doesn't discuss that fact except in passing, because that would be a recognition of homosexuality. In fact, with a wording this broad, you couldn't even discuss this bill in a law or political science course, because to do so would be to "recognize" homosexuality.
Theater departments would no longer be allowed to do any play or musical that has a gay character. So much for Oscar Wilde, or Tennessee Williams. No more A Chorus Line or The Best Man. Even Shakespeare would not escape unscathed, with As You Like It having considerable homoeroticism in the relationship between Celia and Rosalind. No more The Color Purple or Brideshead Revisited. The more I think about it, the more I think this guy should be named the Idiot of the Decade.
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fairly broad - can't recognize existence of unmarried oral sex or underage sex
http://www.ageofconsent.com/alabama.htm
http://www.sodomy.org/laws/alabama/definitions.html
http://www.sodomy.org/laws/alabama/
Look, you have to get something--um--straight. Wackos like Allen can't--in polite company bash Nigrahs, so they bash queers instead. Queers are the surrogate Nigrahs. Understand?
/tic--but barely.
And, apparently, more than a few Nigrahs don't understand, either.
Oh, and, by the way, it should be clear to anyone paying attention that the South does little more than suck off the US federal teat. They've done that for a long time. The worst thing that the Feds did was to readmit the southern states after the American UnCivil War.
Doesn't the bible say something about homosexuality? Wouldn't this constitute a book "recognizing" homosexuality? So wouldn't the bible now have to be banned? This will really hurt the push to get the bible back into schools, won't it? Wow, he really shot his foot off with this bill! A bill prohibiting the bible...in the SOUTH?!! Run for your life, sir.
Doesn't the bible say something about homosexuality? Wouldn't this constitute a book "recognizing" homosexuality? So wouldn't the bible now have to be banned? This will really hurt the push to get the bible back into schools, won't it? Wow, he really shot his foot off with this bill! A bill prohibiting the bible...in the SOUTH?!! Run for your life, sir.
Very good point, Zod. The wording is indeed broad enough that it could even ban the bible.
Doesn't the bible say something about homosexuality? Wouldn't this constitute a book "recognizing" homosexuality? So wouldn't the bible now have to be banned? This will really hurt the push to get the bible back into schools, won't it? Wow, he really shot his foot off with this bill! A bill prohibiting the bible...in the SOUTH?!! Run for your life, sir.
LOL. Wow! A prior restraint on the Bible. Now that's some major league huevos.
On a more serious note, and putting aside for a moment the obvious First Amendment issues, this is a funds/facilities statute, and I'm speculating about what the strategy (I'm being generous with that term) here might be. Have a look at Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989). At issue in Webster were several Missouri anti-abortions statutes. One was a preamble to the Act, which said that life begins at conception and that the unborn have protectable interests in life and health. Another was a public funds statute, which prohibited the use of public funds for abortion counseling. Two other statutes barred public employees from performing abortions within the scope of their employment, and denied the use of public facilities to perform abortions.
Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for a very divided Court, took a pass on deciding the constitutionality of the preamble, saying that it did nothing to regulate conduct. Instead, it simply expressed a value judgment on the state's part, preferring childbirth over abortion. Missouri's courts, he said, would have to decide what impact the preamble's language might have on other Missouri statutes or regulations.
On to the public funds statute. Missouri claimed, and the Court agreed, that this funding prohibition was not directed at the conduct of any private individual. It was simply a direction to the people responsible for Missouri's funds not to disburse any funds for abortion counseling. The appellees (plaintiffs below) accepted this characterization of the statute, and the Court directed a reversal of the judgment that the statute was unconstitutional.
As to the facilities/employees statutes, Chief Justice Rehnquist, relying on earlier Supreme Court decisions, noted that the state is not required to be in the health care business. Indeed, due process does not require that the state provide anyone with aid or benefits; it merely prohibits the state from depriving a person of life or liberty without due process of law. "If the State may 'make a value judgment favoring childbirth over abortion and . . . implement that judgment by the allocation of public funds,' [citation omitted], surely it may do so through the allocation of other public resources, such as hospitals and medical staff." Webster, 492 U.S. at 510.
I realize, of course, that Webster was concerned primarily with due process, while this statute implicates the First Amendment. Nevertheless, it is easy to foresee an argument that the statute does not regulate primary conduct, it merely controls the expenditure of public funds and the use of public facilities pursuant to Alabama's value judgment preferring heterosexuality over homosexuality. The state isn't required to be in the library or higher education businesses. While states are required (in the sense that attendance is compulsory) to offer primary education K-12, and again ignoring momentarily the First Amendment, states are free in that setting to prefer heterosexuality over homosexuality. From there, the state bootstraps an argument that the statute is simply a permissible time, place, and manner restriction.
Whenever I see a funds/facilities statute of dubious constitutionality, I'm reminded of Webster and similar decisions. I am not suggesting that the argument would work. Nor do I really think that this statute could survive First Amendment scrutiny. The statute is an embarrassment to the state of Alabama and all the good people there who are not narrow-minded, bigoted homophobes.
And yes, I agree. Allen is so blinded by his bigotry, he can't even see that his statute bans the Bible from public schools and facilities. What a moron.