to be fair, Elvis was an adult. these are kids. minors. i think the legislation is ridiculous..but i understand the concern behind it.
i challenge you to find legislation where morality isn't part and parcel of it. from tax law....to criminal statutes...to administrative regulations...our culture's sense of right and wrong is ALWAYS in play. that's true in ever culture throughout history. the notion that we can't or shouldn't be legislating morality is absurd to me. this particular legislation has problems because it doesn't specifically define the conduct it prohibits. it will fail.
I just wanted to add one thing. Most girl cheerleaders dress in very short skirts with matching colored *panties* that they fully expected to display during the course of their cheering.
Is it always moral to enforce morality? I think people are confusing morality and Christian morality. That is because Christians think Christian morality is all morality and that morality is dictated by their god. They want a monopoly. There are different definitions of morality: mo·ral·i·ty ( P ) Pronunciation Key (m-rl-t, mô-) n. pl. mo·ral·i·ties The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct. A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct: religious morality; Christian morality. Virtuous conduct. A rule or lesson in moral conduct. So of course we legislate morality. But on what basis? I think it should be on the basis of what is the best way to run an society founded the principle of the equality of all living beings, and the principle of reciprocal respect. We must be leery of enforcing beliefs that value we do not share, and has not gained wide support for whatever reason. That's when laws can be oppressive and disastrous.
No matter what religious dogma or code of ethics/morality you subcribe to, I think we can all agree that something needs to be done about this. As has already been said, you can't dance like that in school any other time or place.. so why them and why there? Local enforcement would be perfect, but apparently they're not able/willing.. so the state has to step in. I'm not too far removed from high school, and even I was pretty disgusted/ashamed with the crap they had cheerleaders and dance troops doing from junior high to high school. I think there was an episode of king of the hill that related to this.. about cheerleaders basically dancing like girls do in clubs, and not actually.. cheering for anything... And to all the people who think this is a waste of time and we should be fixing the school finance situation, welcome to politics. We voted them in, and apparently we keep voting them in.. the school finance issue will hit 2 or 3 special sessions this time around, so it's far from done, but this issue is a political goldmine for the time being and should be resolved rather quickly.
Well of course we're going to have arguments about what is right and wrong, Meowgi. That's at the heart of every real government...at the heart of every council that's called on to provide "rules" for the whole. Of course that comes into play. And I think it proves my point that we absolutely legislate morality...that right and wrong is EXACTLY the heart of the matter for government. We've decided that there are certain things that are inappropriate for children. Those ideas are enforced throughout our culture, privately and publicly. That concept shouldn't be foreign. That's not inherently a Christian idea...but if you're going to throw out Judeo-Christian concepts of morality entirely from the law, you'll have a pretty bare cupboard...that was the basis of this country's sense of right and wrong from the moment the pilgrims got here...and it's reflected in the documents we hold up as nearly scriptural. Do I think this legislation is silly and worthless?? absolutely I do. So I'm not sure what we're arguing about. I just see it said all the time that you can't legislate morality. And that's utter nonsense.
from page 2 Quote: Originally posted by SamFisher And assuming that they exist can you specifically identify any societal harms which occur from this gyration? I mean, hell, I'm sure you could find substantially more parents and children who think that homework sucks and that legislators should outlaw that. Pretty much I'd say the sexual exploitation and sexualization of 12 year olds is undesirable and that there are societal harms that stem from it, yeah.
I would only want to throw out Christians ideas of morality if they are oppressive. I think the Native American Indians wanted to throw a lot of them out. My only point was that Christian morality is just that. And when people say they don't want morality legislated, what they really mean is that they do not want Christian ethics legislated. Like Christians don't want non-Christian morality legislated (animal rights etc.). Unfortunately the two terms are synonymous in our society, and that causes problems.
Why do you assume Christians don't want animal rights legislated I'm a Christian, and I'm all for it. If you're abusing animals...go to jail. If we're arguing semantics, fine. I don't think that's where it stops with most people. I think it's a neat catch phrase (don't legislate morality) that is completely divorced from reality. There are some things we can all look at and say, "hey that's just wrong," whether we're Christian, atheist, Buddhist, deist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc. Do we ALLLLL have to agree it's wrong to say that it's criminal behavior in this country??? Of course not. Good luck getting 100% of the people to ever say anythiing...and it's a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. When we do that...when we say, "hey, it's WRONG that executives cheated and screwed people out of money...and they should go to jail for that," that is INHERENTLY legislating morality. That's the best we can do. And I'd point out that if any group treated another group today as Native Americans were treated by early America, they should be locked up as well. Guess how I get there??? My own sense of morality. Because it's "just wrong" to treat people that way.
Put it this way...I hope you know how lucky you are to live in a country where the topic of cheerleaders is even taken seriously. Keep things in perspective. Do you think they are talking about cheerleaders in Iraq, Afgan, Isreal, etc. Why aren't we more conerned with health care, education, poverty, political reform (ahem Delay), etc. These are BIG problems in America and I wish our legislaters and our populace would spend more time on things that matter. I'm not trivializing the topic because exploiting children is universally bad. But has it really risen to that level where it should be diverting our government in a time of war? I would fully support a grass-roots, parent-led movement to clean up cheerleading. But I'm skeptical of this bill particularly since its language is vague and I've never heard of any public outcry on the issue prior to this.
The routines in question will most commonly be hip-hop routines, by the way. The cheerleading squads who want to go more "dance-like" will do hip hop and the drill/dance teams will do them for a more fun atmosphere. Oh yeah, hip-hop is dominating dance/drill performances and competitions at the moment as well. Hayes - what Kilgore does is not dance, either, they are ridiculous and pretty much out of 1930's drill crap. There is real dance out there, it is just harder to find. The stuff that is causing problems is the more fad-type junk. I do think the bill is silly, obviously, and is near impossible to define/enforce. I would worry about the dance teacher who tries to do a modern piece or something and some of the movements (since there is a lot on the floor) would get interpreted as sexual just because some yokel parents don't get it.
Which societal harms? Identify them, please give specific examples of children who were harmed due to dance team gyration primarily or completely. Plus, with regard to the story that you told of parents whose non-gyrating children had no recourse but to go to representative Edwards or be kicked off the dance team - who are they? Where are they? You brought them up, I assume you are referring to specific individuals.
What? I don't think I have to point out a specific kid to make the point. I think that all the children who are sexually exploited and sexualized at 12 are hurt. Do you contend that its GOOD to sexualize 12 year olds? Do you think its good to for 12 year olds to associate sex and popularity? Please point out where I said that? No wonder you spend so much time out of the office - certainly have no attention to detail. I guess some lawyers can get by on bluster and overbearing ego.
I contend that parents & to an extent school personnel should have a choice to make that judgment as to what is and isn't sexualization examples?
Yes, and parents are saying they don't have enough influence with the instructors. That's the whole point. What? You asked me to show where kids were kicked off a team, as you alleged I claimed. I never said kids were kicked off a team, and that quote doesn't say that either. Keep looking, joker. The Dallas Morning News references hearing from parents that said they couldn't influence the instructors. They didn't name the parents. I don't HAVE to name them to prove the point, unless your position is that the whole thing is made up and no parent ever complained, Edwards is lying, etc. A line you have zero chance of proving.
Yes, you do. If virtually no kids are being sexually exploited, then why are we wasting time on writing new law? Mind you, "exploited" is a subjective term...which is most of the problem here. People thought Elvis was too sexy and now we look back at that a laugh.
