Last weekend, prior to watching a college basketball game, I watched a cheerleading squad put on an impressive display of balance and acrobatics. Besides the flips, leaps, and dance moves, the cheer squad's choreographed performance included multiple occurrences of people-tossing, where young women were thrown about and thankfully caught by their fellow cheerleaders.
Although most fans cheered the cheerleaders and gave them a round of applause upon completion of their performance, I did not. I was too horrified. Horrified that the thousands in attendance would blatantly allow these young men and women to make a mockery of the Florida legal system.
Way back in the ancient days of 1989, the State of Florida banned dwarf tossing. Despite the legal pursuit of Dave the Dwarf, this law is still in effect. Yet apparently rules enacted for the safety of our nation's vertically challenged population do not apply to those engaged in cheerleading activities.
According to Wikipedia, a dwarf is defined as "a person with an adult height of less than 4 feet 10 inches". The average high school or college cheerleader is barely taller. Yet they are tossed, thrown, and heaved like rag dolls during legally sanctioned cheerleading performances. I find this preposterous.
According to TwistedEdge.com, the rules of dwarf tossing are as follows: "you pick up your selected midget (who will likely be adorning some kind of safety helmet and vest), take a three step run-up and throw the little bugger as far as you possibly can". How is this different from cheerleading?
If anything, dwarf tossing is actually safer than cheerleading. In dwarf tossing contests, dwarves often wear "special padded clothing or Velcro costumes" and "are thrown onto mattresses or at Velcro-coated walls", according to Wikipedia. Cheerleaders, on the other hand, are thrown dozens of feet in the air without padding and with only their teammates to prevent serious, or perhaps even fatal, injury.
(For example, compare the awkward cheerleading falls seen here, here, or here with the dwarf tossing exploits seen here, here, or here. Which is more dangerous? Hint: not the dwarf tossing.)
What if a dwarf dressed him or herself in cheerleading outfit? What if he or she did a cheer before being picked up and tossed on to a padded mat or heaved into a padded wall? Would that still be against the law? If it is legal for the cheerleading team I watched and other cheerleading teams nationwide to endanger the lives of young women by tossing them high into the air with minimal safety precautions, shouldn't the throwing of a similar-sized dwarf be of similar legality? Aren't those who applaud cheerleaders but denounce dwarf tossing blatant hypocrites?
There are only two options available to us that would alleviate this perplexing conundrum. Either we legalize dwarf tossing or we ban cheerleading. It's one or the other. There is no middle ground.
