COLUMBIA - A fifth attempt to legalize tattooing in South Carolina passed in a Senate committee Wednesday, and its major opponent vowed to fight it again.

South Carolina and Oklahoma are the only states left that ban tattooing. Bans came after a contamination scare in the 1960s, but most states have since lifted those bans because of advances in sanitation techniques.

Horry County legislators have fought lifting the ban because they don't want a proliferation of tattoo parlors. Myrtle Beach has taken steps to assign them to zones away from the general commercial area in case tattooing is legalized.

Sen. Bill Mescher, R-Pinopolis, has sponsored the bill to allow tattooing for 10 years without success. "This is the fifth try," he said. Usually the Senate has passed the bill but the House would not.

Mescher said tattooing is taking place illegally, including in Myrtle Beach, and it's better to regulate it. He also says it makes no sense to allow body piercing but not tattooing.

The same cleanliness procedures would be used for both practices, Mescher said.

Sen. David Thomas, R-Greenville, asked whether legalizing tattooing will ensure the end of illegal operators. Mescher said there is no guarantee, but people would probably prefer to to go a licensed operator.

Sen. Jake Knotts, R-West Columbia, helped defeat the bill three years ago when he was a House member. He said people don't have the right to mark up the bodies God gave them.

Knotts told the committee Wednesday he has not changed his mind. If illegal tattooing is taking place, "put them in jail," don't legalize it, he said.

"Are we going to pass laws now to make marijuana legal just simply because people do it?" he asked.

Knotts, a retired police officer, said tattoo parlors bring head shops and crime. Ron White, who was jailed for publicly tattooing someone in a test case, groaned and left the room.

Knotts asked that a subcommittee study the bill, but Committee Chairman Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney, said he didn't expect any new information would be brought out.

Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, said Knotts will block the bill anyway and the only way to get it passed will be to force debate by a two-thirds vote, so there was no point in delay.

"Let's get the battle on," Knotts said.

White, of Florence, said he is appealing through another avenue in the federal courts after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state Supreme Court's ruling that the tattooing ban is constitutional.

Ken Starr, the Whitewater prosecutor, has taken his case at no fee because it is a personal freedom issue, White said.

The state has no health grounds to ban tattooing but is maintaining the prohibition on religious grounds in violation of the U.S. Constitution, White said.

Besides the ability to give and receive tattoos, "we want safety, safety through regulation," White said.