Oklahoma has serious problems with education, health care and over-incarceration as compared with other states. We need to elect serious legislators who want to serve the state and the people they were elected to represent.
Our current batch of Republican legislators prefer to manufacture problems to divide us further or that they can use to make a name for themselves.
Oklahoma state Representative J. J. Humphrey (R) on January 17, 2024, filed bill HB 3084 to target “students who purport to be an imaginary animal or animal species, or who engage in anthropomorphic behavior commonly referred to as furries at school.”
Children conducting themselves as non-human animals is a non-existent problem. Humphrey cannot cite a single piece of actual evidence of this happening at any school in Oklahoma.
Perhaps he wants to reinvigorate the debunked far-right myth that schools are providing kitty litter for children who identify as cats. Just because Lauren Boebert claims this is happening does not make it true https://coloradotimesrecorder. com/2022/10/ they-are-putting-litter-boxes-inschools- for-people-who-identifyas- cats-says-boebert-not-true-responds- durango-school-district/).
Humphrey wants to prevent furries from “participating in school curriculum or activities; requiring the student’s parent or guardian to pick the student up from school; or providing for removal of the student by animal control services.”
Legislation to address imaginary problems is the specialty of several Oklahoma legislators, but Humphrey does stand out. He has authored or supported bills in the past to make the hosts of fetuses (women, in other words) obtain permission from the fetus’s father to end the pregnancy; an antitrans bill because “transgender people have a mental illness;” a hunting season, complete with license, to hunt Bigfoot in Oklahoma; and a move to defund Oklahoma colleges or universities that have policies of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
Humphrey also introduced House Bill 3082 to authorize elected officials to enter any state prison at any time to inspect conditions and interview staff and inmates. This seems to be a good bill, but it is not necessary. Kay Thompson, speaking for the corrections department, said the agency has an open-door policy with elected officials and the measure is unnecessary.
Humphrey’s newest “contribution to sanity” in Oklahoma is bill HB 3133 to categorize any person of Hispanic descent convicted of a gang-related offense as a terrorist under state law.
Perhaps Humphrey will next file a bill to outlaw the Constitution of the United States and get rid of that pesky business of “liberty and justice for all.”