OKLAHOMA CITY — A strange new bill introduced by Oklahoma State Senator Rob Standridge would make it illegal to knowingly give “obscene material” to a “vulnerable person,” explicitly including unhoused people.
Standridge, a far-right Republican (District 15) who was in the news a few months ago for his bill offering a bounty to encourage the removal of LGBTQ+ books from libraries, introduced SB 1522 along with a House version by Rep. Justin Humphrey (R-District 19).
The bizarre bill was originally introduced on January 20 during the second session of the 58th Oklahoma Legislature, local news site TexOmas reported.
The latest version of Standridge and Humphrey’s SB 1522, introduced yesterday, threatens punishment to “any adult that knowingly gives obscene material to a vulnerable person, which shall include, but not be limited to, a person with intellectual or developmental disabilities or a person experiencing homelessness.”
The Republican legislators also included in SB 1522 an unconstitutional redefinition of all sexual material, including all adult content now protected by the First Amendment, as illegal “obscenity.”
Sandridge and Humphrey redefine “obscene material” as “any description, exhibition, presentation or representation, in whatever form, of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sadomasochistic abuse.”
The bill also pruriently defines “nudity” as “showing of the human male or female genitals, pubic area or buttocks with less than a full opaque covering,” or “showing of the female breast with less than a full opaque covering of any portion of the female breast below the top of the nipple” or “a depiction of covered male genitals in a discernibly turgid state.”
Such supposedly obscene materials would include “book, magazine, newspaper, pamphlet, poster, print, picture, figure, image, description, motion picture film, record, recording tape, CD-ROM disk, magnetic disk memory [sic], magnetic tape memory, videotape, computer software, video game,” and other unspecified media to be determined by the authorities.
Despite his seeming concern for the moral hygiene of the unhoused, Standridge recently opposed a new homeless shelter, making statements conflating Oklahoma's unhoused population with “sex offenders” and calling them “a public safety risk.”
To read the full text of Oklahoma SB 1522, click here.
Main Image: Oklahoma State Senator Rob Standridge