The local government of Tangerang, a comically named suburb of Jakarta, Indonesia, has been trying to crack down on prostitution and address other moral issues for the past several years. The Tangerangian city council’s laws first sparked protest in February after a waitress waiting for her husband on a Tangerang street corner after dark was arrested on suspicion of being a prostitute. (The report did not say what about the law that led to the arrest of the "waitress" was objectionable.)
This week, the Tangerang council went even further by making kisses illegal. Not all kisses, of course — just those between unrelated people who kiss each other on the lips for more than five minutes in a public location.
That definition may leave open a number of disturbing loopholes that I really should not discuss.
The new law has caused an uproar, but the Tangerang government defended its law at a press conference Friday, in Tangerang. "Please do not dramatize this," said Ahmad Lufti, head of the Tangerang department of public order. Which frankly is not the best way to start a statement about something you don’t want to be dramatized.
Hey, remember that scene in The Naked Gun where a burning circus bus crashes into a fireworks shop, and Drebin is out in front telling the crowd, "Okay, show’s over. Move along — nothing to see here. Show’s over," while behind him clowns and acrobats are doing spectacular tricks as fireworks are going off all over the place?
Man, what a great scene.
Anyway, Lutfi asked everybody not to "dramatize this" because "we will not arrest people at will as we are not oppressors." Oh, well, that’s different. Because oppressors always admit they are oppressors, which is how you can tell. Lutfi was then asked by a disrespectful press whether officers would be provided with stopwatches to time any public kissing between the lips of unrelated people that might occur, but he declined to comment.
Indonesia’s national parliament has circulated draft legislation that also bans public lip-kissing, but it is unclear whether that article will become part of the law.
Tangerang.
Link: Reuters News