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They don’t call Arizona the “meth lab of Democracy” for nothing — where else could a lack of foreskin prove citizenship?
The Arizona Senate formally passed the “Birther Bill” today, but not in its original version.
Apparently, requiring presidential candidates to provide a long-form birth certificate before allowing their names on the ballot in Arizona — despite it already being a federal requirement to run for president — was a bit too much for a few GOP lawmakers. So they made some amendments: if you can’t find your birth certificate, and you have a penis, a document describing your lack of foreskin will suffice.
A circumcision certificate — a document given to the parents of a male Jewish child after his foreskin is snipped off during a circumcision ceremony — is not a legal document (see an example of one here) but if you have one, under the amended bill, it’s apparently enough to prove you’re a U.S. citizen and your name can be permitted on the ballot in Arizona.
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Pulling out your penis in front of election officials, however, will not prove citizenship — and, in the worst case scenario, could get you labeled a sex offender.
Some other ways to prove that you’re not a Kenyan version of the Manchurian Candidate, as spelled out in the ridiculous bill, could be to provide a hospital birth record, a postpartum medical record, or an early census record.
See the amended version of the bill here.
While the bill, even in its original form, is comical/tragic in itself (Arizona legislators spent their time and your tax money coming up with a potential law that already exists at the federal level. Not to mention, it’s in response to a repeatedly debunked conspiracy theory), the most comical aspect of the amended bill is that it seems to have been designed to make the legislation look less nuts — many GOP lawmakers wouldn’t sign on unless the far-right-wingers would lighten up about what types of documents would satisfy proof of citizenship requirements.
What they ended up with is a bill that requires a presidential candidate — if all else fails — to basically provide documentation describing what his penis looks like in order to get on the ballot in Arizona.
Again: “meth lab of Democracy.”
The bill now heads to the Arizona House of Representatives, where it has passed in the past, and likely will again.
