Posted on 08/17/2008 7:16:50 PM PDT by mojito
A quick reading of the measure that will go before San Francisco voters in November to decriminalize prostitution easily could leave you with the misimpression that the measure is an exercise in fairness that demands that prosecutors go after men who abuse prostitutes and implement policies "to reduce institutional violence and discrimination against prostitutes." A careful reading of the initiative, "Enforcement of Laws Related to Prostitution and Sex Workers," however, shows a measure that shields child prostitution and traffickers of human beings.
"If I had just heard from the proponents, I would probably vote for it myself," said the Rev. Glenda Hope, whose San Francisco Network Ministries helped found the Tenderloin AIDS Resource, in the mistaken belief the measure is meant "to protect women." But as the executive director of SafeHouse, a residential center that helps women get off the streets, Hope knows too much.
Hope knows that the average age of entry into prostitution is 12 to 14. The office of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who opposes the initiative, has encountered prostituted children as young as 9 years old.
Yet the San Francisco ballot measure completely ignores the prostitution of children. The measure simply states, "Law enforcement agencies shall not allocate any resources for the investigation and prosecution of prostitutes for prostitution." Astonishingly, there's no exemption that encourages police to enforce the law for minors.
If the measure passes, the city is likely to become an international haven for pimps who peddle girls and boys, and perverts seeking sex with minors.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Just out of curiosity, is there ANY facet of social conservatism that you DO support?
Don’t make me read the replies. I don’t want to know how many FReepers showed up to support pedophilia, human trafficking, and prostitution. I probably wouldn’t be surprised by who supports it. It’s bound to be the same morally bankrupt morons that support all the other disgusting things that crop up. I just don’t want it thrown in my face again.
I just HAD to read this last post from you. Should I feign surprise?
I’ve noticed that there just aren’t that many liberaltarian trolls around here anymore.
Just remember, DO NOT suggest that the degenerate freaks in SF have “mutilated” themselves because that is an insult to women who have had breast cancer.
So far it's worked for me!
I support freedom and avoid nanny stateism. That’s the kind of conservatism I support. Is their any facet of social conservatism you don’t supprt or are you just wanting the government to control sin? Could you ever make a distinction between something you consider immoral and whether or not the law should prohibit it?
I am your protege'.
Ew. What a disgustingly icky-sounding name.
That's exactly how most bad legislation gets passed.
You wrote:
“At one time, San Francisco was one of the most beautiful, engaging cities in the world.”
From WIKI, this describes the turn of the last century in the city by the bay:
[”The Barbary Coast is the haunt of the low and the vile of every kind. The petty thief, the house burglar, the tramp, the whoremonger, lewd women, cutthroats, murderers, all are found here. Dance-halls and concert-saloons, where blear-eyed men and faded women drink vile liquor, smoke offensive tobacco, engage in vulgar conduct, sing obscene songs and say and do everything to heap upon themselves more degradation, are numerous. Low gambling houses, thronged with riot-loving rowdies, in all stages of intoxication, are there. Opium dens, where heathen Chinese and God-forsaken men and women are sprawled in miscellaneous confusion, disgustingly drowsy or completely overcome, are there. Licentiousness, debauchery, pollution, loathsome disease, insanity from dissipation, misery, poverty, wealth, profanity, blasphemy, and death, are there. And Hell, yawning to receive the putrid mass, is there also.”
The Barbary Coast rose from the massive infusion of treasure-seeking argonauts during the Gold Rush. Men from Europe, Asia, South America, Australia and the eastern United States sailed into San Francisco Bay bound for the Mother Lode, many only staying in the gold fields briefly before returning to San Francisco broke or with tiny leather sacks of nuggets and gold dust.
At the end of 1849, out of a population of between 20,000 and 25,000, only about 300 were women and an estimated almost two-thirds of those were prostitutes. Miners, sailors, and sojourners hungry for female companionship and bawdy entertainment continued to stream into San Francisco in the 1850s and 60s becoming the Barbary Coast’s primary clientèle. As the city exploded with the new arrivals, some with shady pasts, soon a wide variety of land sharks, con artists, pimps, and prostitutes staked out an area designed to pluck the gold and silver from the pockets of men through liquor, lust, laudanum-laced libations, or just a hard knock on the head.
Sailors in particular had cause to dread the area because the art of shanghaiing was perfected. Many a sailor woke up after a night’s leave to find himself unexpectedly on another ship bound for some faraway port. When there was a shortage of sailors for departing ships any able-bodied man who wandered into the wrong saloon, or drank with the wrong companion, could wake up with a mysterious hangover onboard a ship. Crime in the streets and corruption in the government offices plagued San Francisco in the 1850s.
Nearly all drinking and dancing establishments in the area were destroyed in the fire that followed the 1906 earthquake, but within months a dozen or so were rebuilt and back in business. Upon the ouster of Eugene Schmitz from the mayor’s office and following the P. H. McCarthy administration, the election of James Rolph Jr, the demise the Barbary coast as a vice zone picked up steam. Between the 1913 anti-vice campaigns led by the San Francisco Examiner and the passage of the 1917 Red-light Abatement Act, the Barbary Coast was effectively diminished and vice activities hidden from view. In 1917 the San Francisco Police blockaded the neighborhood and evicted the prostitutes]
I looked at those photos as well. After doing so, I have come to the conclusion that there are segments of our society where mental illness has ravaged the spirit and mind to the point where absolutely nothing is off limits, no matter how perverted or disgusting it may be. These perverts have reverted back to crude animalistic behavior and left whatever shreds of humanity they had behind them.
Science should re-classify these perverts as a new species, completely separate from human beings.
Actually, there are lots of young, Obama-supporting white professionals living in SF with children under age 5. The problem comes when it's time to send them to school, and the liberal, open-minded parents realize that San Francisco's schools are nothing more than the typical urban American junior penitentiaries that decades of Great Society liberalism has spawned. Those may be good enough for the minority kids who are victims of George Bush's America, but not for their little Madison the future attorney. So they move out to the suburbs at that point - reluctantly, but almost all of them do.
Nonsense, you support immorality and tell yourself that it's "freedom."
Is their any facet of social conservatism you don’t supprt [sic]
No, I'm a conservative.
Could you ever make a distinction between something you consider immoral and whether or not the law should prohibit it?
Unlike the anarchy that you and the other liberaltarians promote, I believe in laws. However, I ONLY advocate making immorality illegal when it harms people and the entire history of prostitution demonstrates that it is inherently destructive.
I know gay people who think the Folsom Street Fair is revolting, too. The participants represent a very vocal but small minority even among gay San Franciscans. Just egos that feed off of the shock they create.
Disgusting..Sounds like they might be following their leader perhaps?
ah, but there will be converts..only subject to persecution beyond our comprehension!!
When the government outlaws everything you consider a sin, can we move on to something else?
anarchy LOL! Is that what you got? Sorry, I missed this little bon mot.
It does not technically legalize prostitution, either, it just directs that SF police resources not be used to enforce any state laws against prostitution. I wonder what SF attitudes would be if any government entity decided to pass a rule saying that it would not investigate or enforce any law against anti-gay or anti-minority discrimination?
Which SPECIFIC behaviors are you talking about?
When the government outlaws everything you consider a sin, can we move on to something else?
I'm not talking about outlawing ANYTHING here, it is YOU who wants to legalize a destructive institution that has been outlawed (though often tolerated) in most of the United States for nearly a century.
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