Luke Burbank now on a hair-raising issue for some dads:

Once upon a time, the most powerful, most respected men in the world -- Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Charles Darwin -- had the most robust of facial hair.

Today, though, let's be honest: walking into a bar full of large dudes with large beards, drinking large beers, can be intimidating, to say the least.

"We see it in cartoons, we see it in movies. It's built in, it's subconscious and it happens: Beard = bad guy," said Fred Ramirez.

Ramirez (or "Fred Von Knox," as he's known on social media) is the founder of the Bearded Villains, a group dedicated to doing good and changing perceptions about guys with beards.

Some may bristle at the sight of a man adorned with voluminous facial hair, but not these members of the Bearded Villains. CBS News

Burbank asked, "Have you considered giving every Bearded Villain a puppy to carry at all times, so they just look non-threatening?"

"Maybe," said Van Knox. "It may get lost in the beard, I don't know!"

The Villains started as an Instagram feed of, you guessed it, dudes with beards, and since has become the largest beard club in the world, with 85 chapters worldwide.

Our clean-shaven correspondent met some of them recently in Fullerton, California, and learned you do not use the term "clean-shaven" around the proudly hirsute.

"If a man likes the shaved look, I refuse to say 'clean-shaved,'" said Van Knox. "There's no such [thing as] 'clean-shaved.' It's either shaved or not."

"You feel like clean shave is unfair, because it assumes that not shaving is dirty?"

"Exactly!"

The Villains say they face significant beard-related discrimination. Bearded Villain Adrian Escamilla used to work at a bank.

"One day they decided it was an issue, and yeah, they gave me an ultimatum," he said. "They told me, 'Get rid of the beard or find an employer that's more 'tolerating' of the beard."

It turns out you CAN be fired for having a beard. "We do not have a constitutional right to wear a beard," Christopher Oldstone-Moore said. "It's been tested in the Supreme Court, 1976."

University of Chicago Press

He would know; he's a history professor at Wright State University, in Dayton, Ohio, who wrote the book on beards (literally).

Do men actually have the right to grow their hair as they wish?

"That's an interesting civil rights question," Oldstone-Moore said. "The Supreme Court has recently ruled in favor of a Muslim prisoner in a federal prison. So the Supreme Court is tolerant of beards for religious reasons, but not for any other reason."

According to the professor, there's still a long way to go before beards gain full acceptance in our modern American world.

"We still have a norm, a shaving norm, in our culture that's well-established," Oldstone-Moore said. "So anyone who deviates from that norm is in some regards suspicious."

And yet, who could be more trustworthy than Christ, usually depicted sporting a beard? Shouldn't that put some of the suspicions to rest?

"What's interesting, what people don't realize, is that at the beginning of Christian history, for the first four centuries during the Roman era, [Jesus] was most often depicted as a clean-shaven young man," Oldstone-Moore said. "We have absolutely no physical description of him at all."

According to Oldstone-Moore, the Jesus we see in pictures acquired his beard during the Middle Ages when beards came into fashion.

Messianic portraiture history aside, Fred Von Knox of the Bearded Villains is steadfast in his mission to change the world, one follicle at a time.

"What does a guy like me supposed to do?" Burbank said. "I haven't shaved for two weeks. This is like a medical condition."

"Well, you can keep trying," Van Knox laughed.

"Trying hasn't worked. What about guys that can't grow a beard? They can't be part of the Bearded Villains?"

"I'm sorry. We respect you all, but no, not at this time."

About as polite of a rejection as you'll ever get.



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