Lawmaker backs off bill to ban yoga pants

A Montana lawmaker who was pilloried in the media for seeking a ban on yoga pants said Thursday he was only joking and that his now-spiked bill was intended to stop nude cyclists from gathering en masse.

David Moore, a Republican, introduced a bill Tuesday that would have expanded the legal definition of indecent exposure in Montana to include “any device, costume or covering that gives the appearance of or simulates the genitals, pubic hair, anus region, or pubic hair region.” It also would have made showing a nipple in public illegal, save for breastfeeding.

While the bill made no direct reference to to yoga pants or tight-fitting clothing, Mr. Moore’s comments to The Associated Press seemed to clarify the bill’s ambiguous language: “Yoga pants should be illegal in public anyway,” he was quoted saying.

But Mr. Moore claims it was only a joke — part of his dry sense of humour, which he says has got him into trouble in the past but has never brought him this level of scrutiny. Since submitting the bill, Mr. Moore has been portrayed as a villain waging war any garments that give a vivid outline of the buttocks or the genitals.

“It’s been a rough 36 hours,” said the two-term legislator who worked as a mechanic for 30 years. “It’s been really awful for people that have known me for years, and they’re saying, ‘ We know that you’re not a hater.”

“I’m not a prude by any means,” says the 53-year-old who goes by Doc. “This whole thing just got wrapped around the axel, so to speak.”

For its part, The Associated Press said Thursday that its reporter asked Mr. Moore twice about this statement on yoga pants.

“After the story appeared, Mr. Moore told associates he was making a joke,” AP spokesman Paul Colford said in an email. “[The reporter] did not report that the bill would go so far as to outlaw yoga pants. Or that he intended to.”

The bill, Mr. Moore says, had nothing to do with clothing and instead was in support of Missoula residents who bristled when hundreds of nude and lightly-clothed cyclists breezed through the downtown last summer for the “Bare as You Dare” naked bike ride.

Mr. Moore said Thursday that municipal leadership in Missoula found state laws “were not very clear on the matter” and allowed the ride to go ahead. The bill was brought to him in the aftermath by constituents hoping to “empower local governments” with the ability to ban naked bike rides and their ilk in the future.

But Missoula mayor John Engen’s office distanced itself from the bill Thursday.

“We don’t work with this legislator closely,” said spokesperson Ginny Merriam. “It is not accurate for Mr. Moore to say that he is doing this because the city of Missoula and the mayor wanted an excuse not to permit it.”

The bill was killed in committee on Thursday, The Associated Press reported.