Trousers: Encyclopedia II - Trousers - Law

Trousers - Law

In May 2004 in Louisiana, Congressman Dick Shepard proposed a bill that would make it a crime to appear in public wearing trousers below the waist and thereby exposing one's skin or "intimate clothing". ([1], PDF). The Louisiana bill was retracted after negative public reaction.

In February 2005, Virginia legislators tried to pass a similar law that would have made punishable by a $50 fine: "any person who, while in a public place, intentionally wears and displays his below-waist undergarments, intended to cover a person's intimate parts, in a lewd or indecent manner".

It is not clear whether, with the same coverage by the trousers, exposing underwear was considered worse than exposing bare skin, or that the latter was already covered by another law.

It passed in the Virginia House of Delegates. However, various criticisms to it arose. For example, newspaper columnists and radio talk show hosts consistently said that since most people that would be penalized under the law would be young African-American men, the law would thus be a form of discrimination against them. Virginia's state senators voted against passing the law. [2], [3].

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Law", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki