House passes bill too gross to talk about
by Michelle Cole, The Oregonian
Tuesday April 07, 2009, 12:51 PM

Count it among the shortest "debates" to ever occur in the Oregon House.

"Good bill. I urge your aye vote," Rep. Chris Garrett, D-Lake Oswego, said Tuesday about House Bill 2478.

Any closing remarks?

"No," Garrett said firmly.

The proposed new law nobody wants to talk about would make it a second degree sex abuse crime to propel "a dangerous substance at another person." That substance being semen or other bodily fluid flung out of sexual desire.

Yep. Apparently such behavior is part of a gang initiation rituals.

The proposed law follows an incident last June when a man threw his semen on a mother in a Portland area Target store. Her little girl saw it first.

The man was convicted of assault, said Rep. Scott Bruun, R-West Linn. But Bruun and others thought the crime should fall into the category of a sexual assault.

"The bodily fluid in question was not the same thing as throwing a coke at somebody," Bruun said during an interview earlier this month.

He kept quiet Tuesday when the bill hit the House floor. It passed 57-0 and now moves to the Senate. -Michelle Cole