Cheerleaders are used to getting attention but nothing like the attention they'll get if the Senate follows the House's lead on a bill that would outlaw any move considered to be sexually suggestive or provocative.
"The bill would require ultimately that we stop exploiting our young girls," bill sponsor Rep. Al Edwards, D-Houston.
Before the bill bill got to the House floor many members considered it a joke. Edwards even shared in some of the laughs just hours before the House passed the bill 65-56.
But it turns out Edwards is serious.
"Some of this is a distraction and we see that as a result more of our young girls being pregnant in middle and high schools, dropping out of school, having babies, and contracting AIDS and herpes," Edwards said.
Opponents to the idea of legislating dance moves are also serious. Dead serious.
"I don't know how this bill got to the floor. It's a stupid! and it's insulting. It's insulting to this body and insulting to the people of the state of Texas for us to be taking the time up here on this kind of horseplay," Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, said.
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Cheerleading bill
Bill would outlaw sexually suggestive dance moves by cheerleaders.
 
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"This House has better things to do that to be hearing a bill of this nature because, I think, morality comes in the home and at the church and not here," Rep. Paul C. Moreno, D-El Paso said.
The issue is so important to Westlake High School mom Pam Urh, she volunteered to pass out flyers for the American Civil Liberties Union. She was hoping lawmakers would listen, not for her sons who play football, but for their cheerleading friends and what she believes to be freedom of speech.
"It really is a bill that just undermines the integrity of the teachers, the school districts, the coaches. They're not going to do anything that is going to embarrass their kids. They don't want that," Uhr said.
In the end, all the arguments against the bill failed, even though Edwards has yet to define what is or isn't sexually suggestive.
"Everyone has their own ideas about what a sexual movement is. but if you're an adult and you've been involved in sex, you know it when you see it," Edwards said.
And who will see to it that you don't see what Edwards and 64 other state representatives don't want you to see? That will be up to the Texas Education Agency.
If the Senate agrees, the eyes of Texas will not only be on public school cheerleaders, it will also be on drill teams, bands and other performance groups such as choirs.
Edwards' bill has gotten national air time. It's been featured on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, and The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel.
