DC Madam’s legal effort could “decriminalize” prostitution
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the alleged “DC Madam,” and her lawyers are fighting to have the government’s case against her dismissed, citing a gay civil rights case.
The case Lawrence v Texas, decided in 2003, found that the government could not regulate private sexual acts, and resulted in the striking down of a Texas law banning gay sex. Palfrey, who is accused of running an elite DC prostitution ring, said Sunday in an email sent to The Daily Background that she believes the case may apply to her situation as well.
“The Supreme Court held that private, consensual sex between homosexual adults is protected under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Palfrey said. Her lawyers contended in a legal brief filed earlier this year that the government is seeking to enforce “antiquated statutes aimed at regulating morality and lifestyle choices, the criminality of which has been seriously called into question in the aftermath of Lawrence.”
Another women’s empowerment story. This is great.
If there’s no victim, there’s no crime! Let’s just legalize prostitution; tax it; regulate it; make it clean; require condoms.
Of course, this seems unlikely given that we live in such a prudish society that a penguin documentary can’t even show penguins mating. I assure you, penguins are not shy about it.
WOO HOO!! Hot and dirty penguin sex!
The government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.
I think Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau said something like that around 1967 or so – and passed a law to make it so.
On the other hand, prostitution is still illegal in Canada, so I’m not sure if the Canadian government or the U.S. government is the biggest hypocrite.
It is not a question of victim/crime or prudishnes. Coming to USA from the place where legalization have occured and witnessing the time when it occured I can state that it leads to the even worst situation. This transition in my area of the world lead qickly from the relative female empowerment before to a significant problem of trafficking in the female slaves for the “industry”. .. Fact that it is legal allowed traffickers to hide in plain sight and as long as taxes were paid, questions were not asked… “Masters” who would automatically be guilty in the past now had the official excuse to exist. These are not your friendly bussinessman next door but hardened criminals seeing bigger profit if the “bussiness” was based on the slavery… Maybe it can work in some wierd utopian world, but I doubt so.
I can see it now, women who need some extra shopping or rent money could turn tricks for a few hours. Damn that. Although it would be an interesting “price war”…
Women own it, men pay for it one way or another. Isn’t this called the oldest profession? Oh, right, Prohibition. And the “Drug War.” Yep, those work(ed) just great. Too bad the government wastes our tax money and tries (unsuccessfully) to repeal the law of supply and demand.
#4 – Cinaedh – On the other hand, prostitution is still illegal in Canada…
Nope, it’s legal. A lot of activities around it is illegal, such as pimping and negotiating payment in public.
5–Dusan==why connect the prostitution with the illegality of forced labor. If your country has sex slave rings I’m sure it also has Nike sweat shops?
The beneift of legalized prostitution “should be” that the women can seek help and not be afraid to do so as what they want to do is entirely legal?
If your experience is accurate, the causual connection is still not made and you are blaming the wrong target.
Dusan Maletic makes a great point. The issue must be that people, each one of us, has the opportunity to achieve in our own best way, and that each of us is taught to appreciate and value every other person. Prostitution seems to be a symptom of illnesses in both the trick and john – both lack something in their lives that pushes each to participate in the act.
I can see it now, women who need some extra shopping or rent money could turn tricks for a few hours. Damn that. Although it would be an interesting “price war”…
Haha, You must be referring to marriage!
Isnt what the porn industry does legal prostitution?
10–Simple==can you be more specific? What “illness” is present, what is lacking?
What “illness” is it that causes one person (in power) to want to prevent two other people to freely engage each other? What is lacking in people that have no sex drive at all and find life satisfaction in other pursuits?
FREEDOM—“letting” other people do what they want to do, even if it harms them, even if you don’t want to do it yourself.
13. “Simple==can you be more specific? What “illness” is present, what is lacking?”
“Illness” is now a generic term used by liberals for any inappropriate human behavior. We no longer have a free will, we’re all bound by our various mental compulsions. Or so they say.
The govt shouldnt have that sort of privacy invasion… but they want it…
14—Jerk==I like to think that I am a liberal, but I see my party/ethos passing me by. Unlike some (eg Regan) that doesn’t make me lean towards the Pubs, but rather the Libertarians.
Ron Paul had some excellent positions on tv interview last night. He won’t make it, but some of his (conservative and libertarina) ideas should!
This whole “illness” routine is one of them. I think you are right, but lets see if Simple violates his pen name and actually has an idea?
This will fail. I’ll agree that the government does not have the right to interfere in sexual relationships between adults, however it does have the right to interfere in business relationships.
When men and women or men and men or women and women chose to have sex it’s nobody’s business. But once one of them starts charging, the government has the right to regulate it.
17—I agree. Now, “should” the gov “regulate” this by “outlawing” it? Or actually regulate it thru taxes, licensing, inspections and so forth?
18. “Now, “should” the gov “regulate” this by “outlawing” it?”
There is a huge different between “should” an “could.” The issue before the supreme court in Lawrence v Texas was not whether the government should ban gay consensual sex, it was whether the government could. The court determined that the government could not.
However, once the government has the power to regulate, it will regulate. It will never chose not to regulate unless large corporations decide they want an unregulated industry to make more profits.
Right now every state in the US has chosen to regulate prostitution in such a way as to make it illegal, except for Nevada of course. (But even in Nevada it is highly regulated!) The states are not waiting for the supreme court to render a decision. They are keeping it illegal because that’s what the voters and corporate America want.
What a country.It is legal for me to pay a woman to whip me but illegal to pay a woman to f*** me.
#17, SN,
But,…
I think this lawyer has an argument. The fact that the state has not attempted to regulate or tax it is their problem, not the service or client’s. Even if the state can show an interest in regulating prostitution on a commercial basis, that would not ameliorate the total prohibition of an otherwise constitutional protected act.
Abortion hinges upon a similar argument; the act is a private decision between the woman and her physician. Yet it too is a legal action even when money changes hands. Yes the state may regulate it, but they may not prohibit it.
I can see the court buying the argument. Of course, although it may be overturned by the Supremes, it would follow their precedents.
21==right you are Mr Fusion. SN goes with the “surface” argument and really isn’t keeping up with constitutional law theory. It is indeed a closer question now that it was before Lawrence v Texas. I recall some older decision saying that the power to regulate included the power to kill–but that meant over taxing it and such.
I think the question is “alive”–the distinction between being able to regulate falling just short of outlawing it.
Lets see. Was prostitution legal or illegal at the time of the writing of the Constitutution? And that opens a can of worms.
#17 – SN
“…it does have the right to interfere in business relationships…”
“…once one of them starts charging, the government has the right to regulate it.”
Understandable if one or both parties is/are a commercial enterprise. That makes it unquestionably a business transaction.
However, an informal agreement to perform a personal service in exchange for cash in hand is stretching the definition of “business” a little too far. By your reasoning, if I stop and offer to help you push your disabled car off the right-of-way for $5, the government has the right to forbid me to do so, which is absurd.
I’m constantly being reminded that American society has become so estranged from the values on which the country was founded that much or most of the pop either have forgotten or were never aware that the core tenet of American freedom is the freedom to conduct oneself as one sees fit, so long as that conduct does not infringe on any others’ right to do the same.
If I come to an agreement with another adult person to engage in sexual activity with that person, the terms of that agreement are of no concern to any other individual or group of individuals, which obviously includes the gov’t.
If either party misrepresents, reneges or defaults on either the services or payment, then we have an ordinary tort, for which remedies are (or should be) available.
But if the contract is carried out to the satisfaction of all parties, the contracted activity involves no one other than those parties and therefore no third party, including the gov’t – especially the gov’t – has any interest in that activity.
Sex is sold all over America, millions of times a day, for cash or for other consideration. You say the difference is that the gov’t has no interest in the transaction if it’s undertaken for consideration other than cash money, but if money changes hands, the gov’t suddenly has a legitimate interest.
I don’t buy that.
My money says it is good for all debts “public and private”. Corse it also says “In God we trust”.
#25 – Johnson,
Friendly reminder, money didn’t always say the latter. It once said it was redeemable in lawful money. Two things happened after that.
1) We ran out of gold; god help us now!!
2) We were in the middle of McCarthyism.
The godvertisements on our paper money and in our pledge of allegiance are relics of McCarthyism, yecch!!
21. “The fact that the state has not attempted to regulate or tax it is their problem”
Making it illegal is regulating it.
“Even if the state can show an interest in regulating prostitution on a commercial basis, that would not ameliorate the total prohibition of an otherwise constitutional protected act.”
Once the state has the power to regulate it has the power to ban.
“Yet (abortion) too is a legal action even when money changes hands.”
You’re talking about wo different things. A woman has the right to control her body. However, the courts have allowed states to regulate abortion with limits. If I’m a pregnant woman who wants an abortion, I’m limited to go to someone the state feels is qualified. I can’t have my neighbor do it, unless he or she just happens to be qualified and performs the procedures under the laws of the state I’m in. It’s not that much different than prostitution in Vegas. I cannot simply go to Vegas and sell my body. I don’t have the right to do that. I have to follow the laws of Nevada.
However, I can go to Texas and have all of the voluntary and adult homosexual sex I want without any interference because that is my right, as long as I don’t pay for it. Once again, once I pay for it, it becomes a state interest.
8. – Jägermeister,
Nope, it’s legal. A lot of activities around it is illegal, such as pimping and negotiating payment in public.
Thanks the the information. As usual, I learn something new every day on DU.
#26, Sn,
You make the error (in my opinion) of confusing a prohibition with regulating. Abortion is a good analogy because it follows the same principle. A person’s body is their business and not the state’s. The reasoning that went into Roe v Wade clearly said a person has a constitutional right to privacy. Lawrence continues that same logic.
It is in the state’s interest to regulate abortion, but as there are limits, courts have struck down all attempts at prohibition yet have allowed certain regulations to stand. I can also see a court regulating certain homosexual acts, such as in public, with minors, or if one party has a known communicable disease. If the same legal logic applies here, and there is no reason to think it shouldn’t, where both abortion and homosexual acts can not be prohibited, then a prohibition against another, similar act can not stand?
yay make it easier and legal for geeks to get laid!
SN –
I see. Your position of sex for cash = illegal vs. sex for any consideration other than cash = legal is quite clear and soundly reasoned. The precedent you cite is on point and convincing.
OOPS! My bad. It would appear that you have NO response other than rude silence. What a surprise! 🙂