Republican Senator Says Schools Are Replacing Bathrooms With Litter Boxes For Kids

A Republican state senator in Nebraska believes that schools are allowing children to act as "furries" in the classroom and that schools are going as far as putting litter boxes in the classrooms for children to use. Believe it or not, this is a long-running myth that Republicans have been pushing in numerous states over the years, but there's absolutely no truth to any part of Bruce Bostelman's crazed conspiracy. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

A Nebraska state Republican Senator found himself in the news this week after a clip of him recently went viral, where he talked about the fact that teachers in Nebraska are apparently allowing children to identify as animals and, uh, says that they're using litter boxes in the classroom and communicating with barks and meows. Take a look. This is Nebraska Republican state Senator Bruce Bostelman and this is what he had to say.

Um, it's something that kind of took me back just a little bit and I'm a little shocked, I guess, is what I would put it. It's called something called furries. If you don't know what furries are, it's where school children dress up as animals, cats, or dogs during the school day. They meow and they bark and they interact with their school and with the teachers and that, in this fashion. And now schools are wanting to put litter boxes in the schools for these children to use. How is this sanitary?

All right. So let's start at the top. If you don't know what furries are, it's when little kids. I'm gonna stop you right there. That is 100% not what a furry is. If you do not know what a furry is, just consider yourself lucky. You don't even need to go look it up, but it's definitely not little kids pretending to be cats and dogs. Okay. So that's really all you need to know about that. Um, second of all, the children are not communicating in classrooms via wolfs and meows, and there's no evidence whatsoever to suggest anywhere that they're putting litter boxes in the classrooms for kids to use. And I love how at the end of it, he's like they're putting litter boxes in there and I, that just can't be sanitary. Yeah, because sanitation is the only thing wrong with putting litter boxes in classes for little kids to use. Believe it or not, this is actually a longstanding myth that multiple Republicans in multiple states have actually been pushing for several years. I think it actually originated up in Michigan where you had angry parents bring this up at a school board meeting a couple years ago, only for the school to be very confused.

Like what in the hell are you talking about? We're not making your children use litter boxes. There is an instance, however, of schools in Colorado that have provided buckets of kitty litter for students. And do you know why that is? Just in case, of course there's an active shooter and one of the kids has to use the bathroom. So yes, in terms of this one area that did it, I don't even know if they're still doing it, but sure. They thought, well, you know what? Active shooters are common apparently and maybe we need to put something in here in case kids are on lockdown for too long and need to use the bathroom. So if you wanna address a real issue, Senator Bostelman, how about you address the fact that we're still doing nothing to stop mass shootings at our schools. All we're doing is saying, hey, if somebody's shooting up your school and you need to tinkle go use the box. That's the best we can do for our children across this country? To me, that seems like a more important issue than children wanting to dress up as cats and dogs, which of course, isn't even a thing that's happening in schools across the country.