You've got to love it when Arizona's crusty Repubo citizens open their mouths and stick their feet in up to the kneecaps. Never a boring day in the Valley of the Sun. It seems that recently a Chandler mother was relaxing at a public pool when her baby decided it was time to eat. The young woman discreetly accommodated the tot and so our story begins.
A few people decided that a mother nursing her baby in a public area was about the most immoral thing they'd ever been subjected to in their drool lives and they flagged down a pool attendant and complained. The attendant, obviously totally disgusted that clean living Repubo people should be forced to watch and ogle such a flagrant public display of indecency, immediately confronted the unsuspecting mother and demanded that she and her hungry infant leave the pool park at once. The mother, wondering what kind of sick, twisted, perverted people were at her local pool today left as ordered.
Now the offended pool clientele didn't stop there. They complained to the city as well. Chandler officials decided that mothers who breast feed their babies on city property must cover up, go to a private spot, or leave if someone complains about it. If they refuse, they could face criminal trespass charges. This administrative directive was slated to go into effect this week.
Chandler Community Services Director, Mark "The Breast Watcher" Eynatten said, "Arizona law doesn't exclude nursing mothers who expose their breasts from 'indecent exposure' prohibitions."
On Thursday night, about 40 mothers showed up at a meeting of the Chandler City Council to challenge the new directive. Over the past few days, city officials had been inundated with phone calls and email concerning the City's stand that could lead to criminal charges being placed upon of mothers who breast feed their infants on City property. The City Council voted unanimously to drop the directive and form a committee to study the issue. (Can you imagine three or four City councilmen standing over a nursing baby taking notes, measuring the amount of breast skin showing, noting if a nipple **horrors** could be seen?)
Mayhaps the decision to deep six the directive was reached because so many of the mothers in attendance were busy breast feeding their infants while the meeting was in progress? Not your usual form of protest, but obviously highly effective.
Said attending mother Lisa Munson Crews:
"I believe that public breast-feeding should not be regulated. No city, state, county or federal employee should have any say in a breast-feeding matter."
And Deahdra-Lyne Atencio, also a mother, had this to say:
"If I'm in a water park nursing, do I have to cover more of my breast than an overweight woman in a bikini going down a water slide?"
It seems that Arizonians who feel put upon by the government for breast feeding their children don't mind putting down others for being fat in public. Is this another matter that we can expect to soon be made a criminal offense in Chandler?
Regarding the debate over a proposed breast-feeding policy in Chandler:
Why is it all right for an overweight man with breasts larger than a woman to walk around with his shirt off, but it is immoral for a woman to breast-feed her baby in public?I am more offended by these men than by a woman performing the perfectly natural function of feeding her baby! After all, female breasts were intended for feeding babies, not the enjoyment of men.
Public exposure of breasts and fat are in it for the long haul it seems. Only in America.
