As the Texas Senate prepared to pass legislation today that would put severe limits on women’s ability to make their own decisions about their reproductive health, Department of Public Safety troopers also took something else from them: their tampons.
News that DPS troopers were confiscating feminine hygiene products from women wanting to watch the abortion debate from the Senate gallery spread throughout the blogosphere and Twitterverse. From the Austin-based Burnt Orange Report blog:
Women are being forced to throw out tampons and maxi pads to enter the Senate gallery, which has been confirmed by DPS.
That’s right: menstruating women are being denied entry to the Senate gallery unless they throw out their supplies.
Additionally, diabetics are asked to throw out their sugar packets.
However, people with concealed handgun licenses are allowed to bypass long lines to enter the Capitol itself through the expedited CHL entrance, and per a DPS officer, if a person has a CHL, they can take their gun into the gallery.
Guns yes, tampons no.
Wow.
How is NO ACCESS to care better for women’s health???
Incredibly misogynistic.
Dewhurst admitted publically that the goal was denial of access to services
Unbelievable! Only in Texas.
This is so over the top it has to be in a news report or no one would believe it.
Because we need to be removed from society for being unclean. Obviously.
sue the bastages
In Texas some things are more dangerous then others.
This is petty harassment. If guns can be brought in instead of tampons, I think that sends the clear message that shooting somebody else is fine, even in the Texas legislature, but it’s not all right to bleed yourself. I think this needs to be taken to its logical conclusion. Aim well, ladies.
…In Texas do you like have to have a license to carry them? Is there a waiting period?
Salinas. I hope you will help the Hispanic community in Texas to understand how much and how deeply the Religious Right and Republicans fear and hate Hispanic people. Here in the eastern United States where I live, about all I ever see in the news media anymore is Republican and extreme right wing conservatives whining about the Mexican problem and how to get rid of all the Mexicans. Send them all home!!! Secure the border!!! To hear them talk, you would think that the humble “chalupa” is the most fearsome weapon ever created outside of the hydrogen bomb.
Why is the GOP against women. Don’t they know a woman gave them birth.
I hope you will help the Hispanic community in Texas to understand how much and how deeply the Religious Right and Republicans fear and hate Hispanic people. Here in the eastern United States where I live, about all I ever see in the news media anymore is Republican and extreme right wing conservatives whining about the Mexican problem and how to get rid of all the Mexicans. Send them all home!!! Secure the border!!! To hear them talk, you would think that the humble “chalupa” is the most fearsome weapon ever created outside of the hydrogen bomb.
No. In Texas, you must first have a period and then be licensed to use tampons—and heaven help you if the official papers do not arrive in time.
However, if you are white, smart, and comply with the Republican/Christian fundamentalist dicktum for all white women in Texas, you will now quit your job, go home, become pregnant, and replenish the white race. The white race in Texas is running more than just a quart low, and anyone of Mexican extraction is a danger to the state and the nation. And besides, if you are pregnant 24/7/365 for two decades, why in the hell do you need a tampon license? Pregnancy is God’s way of getting around the tampon license requirement.
Ain’t Texas wunnerful? Fer white male conservative misogynist Republicans.
One last comment—and I am dead serious about this. The vote on this bill was a direct result of the Religious Right’s decision a few years ago to abandon its social policy goals at the federal level of government (where it had failed miserably)and to press them instead at the city, county, and state level, which it perceives as the easily vulnerable soft underbelly of American democracy.
The hold the Religious Right and the extreme right Republican Party have in Texas will never be broken until their unofficial propaganda arm is neutralized and liquidated. If Democrats, Independents, women, unchurched people, and the mainline Christian denominations of Texas (including Roman Catholics) band together and declare an all out, nonshooting war on the Southern Baptist Convention, independent right wing evangeical churches, and independent Christian fundamentalist churches in Texas, this poltical tyranny will come to an end.
This is not and never has been a political disagreement between Democrats and Republicans, and the road to further tyranny is paved with the mistaken belief that it is. Instead, at its very foundation, this is a war of religious ideologies—a war to determine whether a peculiar 1890-1910 religious system that began solely here in the United States and later became the “little precious” of ignorant, rural, hayseed America, mostly in the south but other places too, is going to grab hold of American culture by the throat and use government power to rule it with the iron hand of totalitarianism.
If you let this continue, mark my word, the day will come when an army of self-righteous fundies (with policemen on their side) will show up to nail boards across the doors and windows of mainline Christian churches in Texas. God help the Roman Catholics and Jews when that day comes. If you value that beer and a hotdog at a baseball game, you can bet your last penny that the beer will no longer be available. I think the newspapers and electronic media outlets in Texas need to take note of this too. Do you really think these people will allow you to continue reporting the news as you currently do? The First Amendment will face its strongest and most dangerous test ever if we continue down this path to a religious dictatorship.
The time to declare all out, nonshooting war on the right wing extremist religious institutions of Texas is now, and all right-thinking Texans must do their part in this ideological struggle. Until the war is won at this level, no victory on the government policy level or at the ballot box will ever be possible.
The time to go to war is now.
And how does such a war begin? First of all, be legal and nonviolent. I will give you two possible examples of how it could begin:
1) In the county where I live, there is a local Christian Pastor’s Association. This is a private little club where all of the local pastors of varied churches meet once a week to fellowship with each other. If you are a United Methodist, Episcopal, Lutheran, Disciples of Christ (there is a very long list of nonextremist denomintions here), refuse to fellowship with Southern Baptist pastors, conservative evangelical pastors, and Christian fundamentalist pastors. If they extend their hand for a shake, keep yours withdrawn and walk away without saying a word. This was called shunning in the 1800s. Rebuke them by shunning them. It is that simple.
2) If a new person from out of town moves in next and comes to the door to borrow a cup of sugar, ask them if they are Southern Baptist. If they say “yes,” tell them that no sugar will be given and ask them to leave your property immediately. Ask your friends to do the same if such people come to the doors of their homes.