‘Sexy cheerleading bill’ appears dead in Texas

updated 4:09 a.m. ET May 15, 2005

AUSTIN, Texas - A bill approved by the state House to ban bawdy cheerleading routines apparently isn’t going anywhere in the Senate this year.

The legislation prohibits “overtly sexually suggestive” cheerleading routines at school events and gives the state education chief the authority to ask school districts to review performances. It does not define sexually suggestive.

The House approved the legislation May 3 and sent it to the Senate Education Committee, where it is expected to die.

“We have some very important work to do in the next two weeks, and that’s not one of them,” Republican state Sen. Florence Shapiro, who chairs the education committee, said Friday.

Democratic Rep. Al Edwards, the bill’s sponsor, has argued that sexually suggestive cheerleading exhibitions are a distraction that results in pregnancies, dropouts and the contraction of AIDS and herpes.

Shapiro said the problem needs to be handled by parents and school districts, not the Legislature.

But Edwards vowed to bring it up in the future.

“If there’s anybody who thinks there’s not a problem with the way our young folks are performing ... then they’ve been somewhere with their head in the sand,” he said.

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