Parade floats mock 'pregnancy pact' case

BEVERLY, Mass., July 8 (UPI) -- Residents and officials of Gloucester, Mass., say they're not laughing over attempts by a neighboring city to mock their headline-grabbing pregnancy pact case.

Some of the floats featured in the annual Beverly, Mass., July Fourth Horribles parade contained satiric barbs aimed at the girls of Gloucester, where the school principal told Time Magazine in June that a spike in teen pregnancies was partly due to a "pregnancy pact" among teenage students.

Gloucester locals said the Beverly floats, which featured mocking messages about the case, young men in diapers emerging from a female dummy's open legs and condoms raining on preteen spectators, went too far, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday.

"It's a disgrace. It's terrible. They have no class," Joe Tumbiolo, 46, a lifelong Gloucester resident, told the newspaper.

"They don't have to slander our town," added landscaper Marc Andrew, 50. "I think that they should watch what they're saying, because it may come back to haunt them."

Beverly Mayor William Scanlon Jr., told the Globe, "I'm sorry if anyone in Gloucester's feelings were hurt, and I'm sure there will be a lot of debate about this."