Have you signed the petition to decriminalize sex work?

ksjack,

Prior to 1910, I can't find any laws regarding prostitution. Can you please support your claim: "There were MANY municipalities that outlawed prostitution before 1910."

I was using the example of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the "anti-prostitution pledge" as examples that the Federal government does deem prostitution illegal. I wasn't aware that I was claiming that the "anti-prostitution pledge" was a law.

There are a few federal laws regarding prostitution: http://prostitution.procon.org/view....ourceID=000119

Have prostitution laws ever been challenged as a violation of the 4th ammendment?

Basically in these stings all you have to be is a single guy with some cash in his wallet to be arrested.

ksjack,

Prior to 1910, I can't find any laws regarding prostitution. Can you please support your claim: "There were MANY municipalities that outlawed prostitution before 1910."

I was using the example of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the "anti-prostitution pledge" as examples that the Federal government does deem prostitution illegal. I wasn't aware that I was claiming that the "anti-prostitution pledge" was a law.

There are a few federal laws regarding prostitution: http://prostitution.procon.org/view....ourceID=000119 Originally Posted by Grace

Seriously? Never heard of red-light districts? OK, if you want, here's a couple.

Indianola and Jefferson, on the other hand, survived their first years relatively free of prostitution, but during the 1850s an influx of prostitutes spurred both towns to pass ordinances suppressing bawdy houses.

Many Texas communities routinely passed ordinances outlawing prostitution during the nineteenth century but paid only sporadic attention to them, influenced as their leaders were by the conventional wisdom that prostitution was ineradicable and therefore might as well be controlled. Community officials also had a keen appreciation of the hefty fines and rents prostitutes paid and the legions of male consumers they lured to town.

Both of the above quotes taken from HERE

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the growth of industrial cities and the opening of the western frontier had led to an increase in prostitution, which tended to be concentrated in tacitly accepted "red-light" districts. The growth of these districts and the mounting concern over venereal disease resulted in two differing approaches to dealing with prostitution. One group, led by the New York physician W. W. Sanger, wanted to require compulsory medical inspection of prostitutes and to confine all prostitution to the red-light districts. During the Civil War some army commanders adopted such plans, but the only city to do so was Saint Louis between 1870 and 1874. Agitation against the Saint Louis plan came not only on moral grounds but also on public health grounds after an increasing number of physicians began to have doubts about their ability to detect venereal disease during the required inspection.

The second group wanted to abolish prostitution altogether. Josephine Elizabeth Butler, an English reformer, greatly influenced their efforts, but the group also had strong ties to the woman's suffrage movement. Many of the activists of the pre–Civil War antislavery movement joined the cause, and an increasing number of cities and states acted to curtail prostitution in the last two decades of the nineteenth century.

The above quote from HERE.

It's not hard to find. Regulations regarding prostitution ranging from grouping them in one area (red-light districts) to setting "business hours" to outright banning went on in the Roman days as well as Medieval times. Certainly long before 1910.

If you can't be prosecuted for something because it's not illegal under the law then it's not illegal, plain and simple, so what point are you trying to make by saying in one breath that the anti-prostitution pledge isn't a law but it indicates that the federal government deems it illegal because of it???

You know what? You folks that want the Feds involved in this (one way or the other) had better be damn careful what you wish for because you just might get it and believe me, it ain't gonna turn out like you want it to...it never does.

Jack

Are you one of those fucking nut job religious peeps who thinks sex for money is evil? wow.. Originally Posted by Guilty Pleasures

What a girl. Of what relevance is any of that?
I could counter," I dunno are you a godless whore
that worships yourself?"; But that would be in bad
form, and probably a violation of some kind.
So I would never do that.

I am a lost soul.
That does not mean I will embrace the darkness.
Though I am corrupted, I will not blot the light
Odds are sister is that we will both burn.
I however am not going to try and fool
myself or others into thinking otherwise.

I am not 4,500 years old.
This prohibition is not of my edict.
Your emotion is misdirected.

I just signed and am emailing friends to do so. Get with it and spread the word we all have a voice and it is time to be heard!

ksjack,

Thank you for the links.

From one of the links that you provided, I guess you skipped over this: In the U.S. prostitution was first curtailed by the Mann Act (1910), and by 1915 most states had banned brothels (Nevada being a notable exception).

Uh yeah. Jack pointed out prior to the Mann act
prostitution was dealt with on a municipal level.
Prior to 1910 the govt operated under the notion
that the criminality of prostitution was not its
decision to make- the States by virtue of the
10th Amendment have the authority to decide
such civil matters.

Again it was the intrusion of the Federal govt
that has brought things to this point.
How can even more intrusion be of any RL benefit?
More disturbing is what if a municipality for
whatever reason wants prostitution discouraged?
They lose that right under your plan.

The legitimacy you seek can not be granted
with the ink of a pen. It requires a quantum
shift in societal mores which just isn't going
to happen anytime soon.

The effort is pathetic. I could have over
10,000 sigs on a keep it illegal petition
by now- at least 10k. Hit the SBC and
it could peg 70k eeeeesey.

Executive orders can be rescinded
by congress. It's 2012 next yr pres election.
Hello the bill to rescind an EO of this
magnitude would be a GOP vote generator.
It's politically toxic in the current atmosphere.

If I wasn't a principled bastard I'd sign it
just for the 2012 political windfall.

ksjack,

Thank you for the links.

From one of the links that you provided, I guess you skipped over this: In the U.S. prostitution was first curtailed by the Mann Act (1910), and by 1915 most states had banned brothels (Nevada being a notable exception).

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/prostitution#ixzz1bTI5FP2h

Originally Posted by Grace

I didn't miss it, Grace, I recognized it for the fallacy it was. It did not deal with prostitution at all and the Supreme Court ruling verified this in 1913. It dealt with transporting people ACROSS STATE LINES for immoral purposes, something the Constitution does give the feds at least some control over by the regulation of INTERSTATE COMMERCE.

That's not the same thing at all. Your own quotation mentioned that the brothels were banned BY THE STATES, not the feds. The two statements are completely unrelated to one another and the first being on its face incorrect and in opposition with the Supreme Court ruling.

I don't think that prostitution should be illegal on any level. Right now it is NOT illegal on the federal level. Nor have the feds guaranteed a "right" to being able to prostitute one's self because, quite frankly, that right doesn't exist. The feds have, and should, stay out of this on both sides when it comes to codified law.

Jack