[This spoof article has been making the email rounds -author unknown. I have posted it here in its entirety for your reading pleasure.]

Montana Republicans to Seek Toothpaste Ban in 2013

By MIKE DENNISON IR State Bureau | Posted: Thursday, March 22, 2012 12:00 am | (0) Comments

Republican legislative candidates are preparing to announce that they believe states should have the right to outlaw toothpaste and other oral hygiene products without the interference of the Supreme Court. However, the candidates are divided over the reasons for pressing for the ban.

“The state has a right to do that, I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that,” said Rep. Derek Skees (R-TEA Whitefish). “Oral hygiene is not a constitutional right. The state has the right to pass whatever statutes they have.  That’s the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court–they are creating rights, and it should be left up to the people to decide.”

States’ rights isn’t the only argument Republicans are making against oral hygiene.

“Toothpaste destroys marriages by rendering make-out sessions an act of pleasure rather than a task to be endured as a lead up to the sacred act of procreation,” said Rep. Tom Burnett (R-Bozeman).

Rep. Wendy Warburton (R-Havre) agreed.  But she said she saw it in broader terms, as “a violation of conscience, a fundamental assault on First Amendment rights.”

“When toothpaste is distributed to youth, their breath is fresher and they are more likely to engage in the immoral activity,” said Warburton. And that’s why, she said, they’re at risk for everything from AIDS to unintended pregnancy. Besides, “In the real world, everyone knows that toothpaste use is never 100 percent effective,” she said matter-of-factly.”We shouldn’t be luring our youth into unnatural acts with a false sense of safety.”

While no one is suggesting that activists like Warburton and Burnett will ever succeed in outlawing toothpaste completely, they are making incremental progress in discouraging its use in other ways.

“Parents are taking a greater responsibility in teaching their children the great truths of the Bible, a book in which toothpaste does not once appear,” said Rep. Liz Bangerter (R-Helena). “Many youngsters today — especially older ones —  laugh at the idea of Biblical health care traditions. The Bible has taken a back seat to other priorities. In its absence, oral hygiene has crept in.”

When asked for an example of what she meant by “Biblical health care,” Bangerter pointed to the biblical cure for disgestive ailments, which appears in Judges 3:21.

“And Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly. And the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not pull the sword out of his belly; and the dung came out.”

Another front in the campaign against toothpaste has centered on science. At the behest of his own quest for knowledge, the Montana Legislature’s leading expert on research convened a scientific study in his own district, which he conducted himself.  Rep. Bob Wagner (R-Madison County), who has appeared as an expert on CNN,  sought to evaluate whether anyone would notice if he stopped using toothpaste. The answer, reported Wagner, was “no.”