Oh Alabama

A bill making its way through the GQP-controlled Alabama Legislature would lift the state’s nearly thirty-year ban on teaching yoga in public schools.

Stop there. Alabama has had a ban on teaching yoga is public schools for thirty years? Yes, because in 1993 the state’s Board of Education bent to the will of conservative asshats over yoga’s Hindu roots. But now they have a new bill, though, because it’s still Alabama, the bill will allow the teaching of yoga to schoolchildren if, and only if:

“All poses, exercises, and stretching techniques shall have exclusively English descriptive names.”

“Chanting, mantras, mudras, use of mandalas, and namaste greetings shall be expressly prohibited.”

So Alabama, the only state in the union to ban yoga—because it has roots in Hinduism—is now thinking of allowing it, as long as you don’t say “Namaste.”

For the unenlightened—see what I did there—means “the light in me bows to the light in you.”

Seriously.