Louisiana May Ban Low-Slung Pants
The Associated Press, April
23, 2004
BATON ROUGE, La.—People who wear
low-slung pants that expose skin or “intimate clothing” would face a fine
of up to $500 and possible jail time under a bill filed by a Jefferson Parish
lawmaker.
State Rep. Derrick Shepherd said he filed the bill
because he was tired of catching glimpses of boxer shorts and G-strings over
the lowered belt lines of young adults.
The bill would punish anyone caught wearing low-riding
pants with a fine of as much as $500 or as many as six months in jail, or
both.
“I’m sick of seeing it,” said Shepherd, a
first-term legislator. “The community’s outraged. And if parents can’t
do their job, if parents can’t regulate what their children wear, then there
should be a law.”
The bill would be tacked onto the state’s obscenity
law, which restricts sexual activity in public places and the sale of sexually
explicit items.
Joe Cook, head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s
Louisiana chapter, said the bill probably does not meet the U.S. Supreme
Court’s standard for the prohibition of obscene behavior under the First
Amendment.
“What about a woman who is wearing a bathing suit under
her garment or she has something like a sarong wrapped around her and it’s
below her waist,” he said. “I can think of a lot of workers, plumbers, who
are working and expose their buttocks ...”
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