This is from a brief interview I did this afternoon:
Do you feel the current piercing laws and regulations break the rights supposedly granted upon us by the first amendment?Most of the piercing laws are there to ensure that studios act at a minimum safety level (proper contamination control, sterility, and so on), as well as placing some minor restrictions based on customer age. I don't believe either of these types of laws is contrary to fundamental rights and assuming they are come to rationally and with the input of the body modification community I support them.
That said, there are a number of public schoolboards that have placed restrictions on their students' rights to pursue body piercing (as is considered fully legal under state and federal law). Because these restrictions stem from personal bias and politics, they have no place in setting the laws of a public school. While schools do have a responsibility to act in loco parentis, they do not have the right to overrule the parent's or the student's rights.
It is important to note that regulations of the type I've just mentioned have been shown to be unconstitutional when taken to court. The Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines (393 US 503) that students had the right to dress and appear as they chose. The judges wrote, “it can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
Do you think minors should be able to have piercings done without a parents consent, or a parent present?
I believe that naming 18 as the minimum age for all piercings is ludicrous — piercing requires dramatically less maturity than driving a car, which we've agreed is allowable at age 16. That said, there should be an age before which parental consent is needed to protect the youth; I would propose that age is somewhere between 14 and 16.
Is denying a person their piercing denying them who they are (thus going against what our founding fathers wanted in a free nation)?
I can't tell you that it always is, but what I can tell you with full certainty is that it sometimes is. Freedom doesn't just apply to the “average” person — it must also protect the exceptional and even the unique.
Do you agree that having to be 18 for piercings is the same as having to wait to buy cigarettes; or to vote? It's something everyone must wait for thus making it fair.
First, I can't see how forcing people to wait for anything makes it more fair. It's also not the same as the two examples you mentioned — piercing is no where near as dangerous as cigarettes, nor does it require the maturity and education voting should require. All forcing someone to wait until 18 does is insult them.
Do you agree that being atheist, or solo, and modded makes you discriminated against? Changing your body is fine for religious reasons, but if you're not part of a large religious group, and it's for personal enlightenment or fulfilment it's shunned?
Clearly awarding special rights to those who swear by an arbitrary religion is contrary to the concept of equal rights for all. Such a system awards rights based on faith, and obviously discriminates against atheists. The law must not be dictated by faith. The truths of law must be absolute and religion may not be considered in determining the rights of an individual in a free and equal society.
Do you think piercings can be dangerous on minors because of growth?
Within reason I don't believe there is any evidence showing that. All of the evidence I've seen over the past ten years suggests the contrary, as does the historical record.
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