Call Lansing Lawmakers Who Banned "Vagina" What They Are: "Dicks"

Call them fascists. Or Puritans. Or just cut to the chase and call them “Dicks.”

I’m referring to the Republican leadership of the state House in Lansing that banned State Rep. Lisa Brown from speaking on the floor after she muttered the word “Vagina” at the end of a speech.

It’s outrageous in the 21st Century that lawmakers would ban someone from speaking on House floor simply because they used an anatomically correct word.

It’s not only offensive to me that they would be offended, but it downright scares me.

The same folks who talk about less government, are the same ones who want to limit free speech, bring prayer to public schools and limit a woman’s right to choose. And they’d do a lot more to limit our freedoms if they could.

When I heard about the vagina ban, I thought of the late comedian Lenny Bruce of the 1960s. He would have been amazed -- and perhaps amused -- by the absurdity of it all in the 21st Century. For those of you who don’t remember, Bruce was an edgy comedian who used a lot of vulgarity and got arrested multiple times because of it.

In 1961, he was arrested after using obscenity at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco. He used the word “cocksucker” and he referred to the word “come” as a verb, a sexual reference.

A jury acquitted him, but eventually in New York, after performing at the Cafe Au Go Go, he was arrested for using obscenity and convicted. He was sentenced to four months in a workhouse, but was set free on bond pending appeal. He died before a decision came.

I remember reading about Lenny Bruce while I was in college, thinking how preposterous, how could someone get arrested in America, land of free, land of the Freedom of Speech, for saying a word like “cocksucker”?
But now when I see what’s happening in Lansing, it makes me pause, seeing these anal-retentive lawmakers trying their best to bring us back to the dark ages.

I really think Lenny Bruce would have had eaten this up, used it as fodder for his act.

He might have referred to these guys as “cocksuckers” or “Dicks.”

I, on the other hand, prefer the anatomically correct term for these people: “Penises.”