Beyond Opinion

Virginia lawmakers have gone cuckoo. Talk about trivial pursuits. The assembly recently passed legislation to make it illegal for a young person to wear pants so low that underwear, especially women's thong underwear, shows. Now I think it does not look right for underwear to show, because it is supposed to be under, not over. The problem usually occurs with men who go shirtless or women with a bare midriff, because a normal shirt will cover underpants that would otherwise show.

But there are serious problems with this legislation. First of all, it says "young". What is young? Do they say? Do they mean under 40? In any case, it is age discrimination. I don't think it would stand a challenge in court. How one wears underwear is a personal decision, and it is not proper for government to pass laws against it, because government was meant to protect people from other people, and this legislation does not do that. But the main problem is that it makes Virginia look foolish. Tonight (2005 February 8), Aaron Brown on CNN, when presenting his morning papers (no, not the Richmond Times-Dispatch), showed one that mentioned the bill. Aaron got a little peeved by this item, and smirked at it. To me this shows that this is making Virginia the laughing stock of the nation.

I urge Virginia lawmakers to just simply table this legislation and put it in file 99. There is more important stuff to do.