While the majority of you are going to spend your evening bumming the good chocolate off of your kid’s Halloween stash after they go to bed, lawmakers, religious zealots, and raptor enthusiasts will be counting down the hours until midnight strikes.
According to the Tulsa World, a bunch of wild and crazy new laws hit the books in our great state at midnight! Here are 5 or our favorites...
You can use your debit card for scratchers
With the advent of bank cards and ecommerce systems like Venmo or PayPal, unless you work at Chili’s or Night Trips you’re probably not going to have paper money on hand. In the past, this has limited people’s ability to buy lottery tickets being that gas stations and bait shops could only accept cash when dishing them out. But not anymore! Senate Bill 1303 will allow you to purchase scratchers more easily by using your debit card. This easier access will of course only make it easier to get the right combination of Power Ball numbers and in no way make it easier to develop a gambling problem.
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We get a state raptor
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks to House Bill 2997, Oklahoma is now one of two states with a state raptor. It’s about time Oklahoma is ahead of the curve in something. I am so glad our lawmakers spent so much time and energy in office making sure the red-tailed hawk is properly honored.
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There’s new regulations for “assistance animals”
House Bill 3282 allows tenants to request housing accommodations for their assistance animals, as well as allow landlords to request documentation verifying the necessity of the animal. It also defines what an “assistance animal” entails. As far as I can decipher from the law, I can’t see any reason why our state raptor couldn’t fulfill that position.
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Discrimination is legalized
Thanks to Senate Bill 1140, adoption agencies can deny placing a child with a family if the agency believes the prospective parents’ “morality” varies from that of the agency. Human rights organizations claim that this bill directly targets LGBTQIA+ families. But advocates for the bill seem to think the bill just protects the children. Because if there’s anything worse than living in a group home or foster care environment for the rest of your life, it’s being adopted by a loving family with two dads.
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We get a state “inspirational” song
House Bill 3473 has officially made “I can only imagine” by Mercy Me the state inspirational song. I don’t know what lawmakers were thinking. If you really want to inspire Oklahomans to hope for a better future, choose songs like Led Zeppelin’s “Going to California” or John Denver’s, “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”
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Hayley wants a Marilyn Manson diddy for the state “inspirational” song. Can you guess what it is? Follow her on twitter @squirrellygeek
