These guys have been hanging out around campus lately to get people to sign their petition to overturn the City Council's ban on lap dances. The mayor signed the new rules into effect last week that require a 4 foot spacing between the dancers and customers, waist high railings around the stages, and lights that would be more at home in a Wal-Mart than in a seedy night spot.
Anyone who's ever had to plan a bachelor party in Seattle should be outraged. And frankly, anyone who believes in freedom, women's rights, or property rights should be too.
It's interesting that a council that no doubt would react with abject horror and a lecture about "respecting the rights of women" to a proposed ban on abortion don't see the hypocrisy in a de facto ban on women choosing to dance in a strip club. Why is one more worthy of protection than the other? If pro-choice activists see abortion regulation as an effort by the Religious Right to criminalize the sexuality of women, then where are those same activists now? Either women are adults who can and should be trusted to make their own choices, or they're not. One thing is for sure - if the Mayor was an avowed Christian who stated publicly that he thought stripping was an abomination to God, you can bet that we'd see major protests and all kinds of references to the council as no better than an American Taliban.
I'm not saying that strip clubs can't or shouldn't be regulated, even if those regulations are abjectly stupid. But it's worth noting that these particular rules will almost without question force the clubs to close (there are other options not too far out of town) and put dozens of people out of their jobs, and that it's done for no other reason except either (a) prudishness or (b) a blind adherence to some particular sect of feminism that says women should be free to choose and follow their own path - unless the feminists don't approve of the path, of course.
If the petitioners are unsuccessful and the gentlemen's clubs are forced out of business by the rules, I hope the owners sue the city for compensation for the taking of their livlihoods. It's a shame that our local government is so disinterested in personal property rights.
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2 comments:
Abortion and dancing aren't the same, but the underlying philosophy to regulate both activities is. If women are free to exercise their sexuality and freedom without governmental interference of any kind, then neither should be regulated.
I happen to think both can and should be regulated. I don't think very many people would argue that there's a Constitutional right to strip unfettered by any regulation, and most would agree that it's within the purvue of the local community government to regulate that kind of thing. I don't even think that City Councils should be prohibited from making inconsistent policies. But to argue that there's a constitutional right to an abortion, but that strippers can be regulated into oblivion - well that's simply intellectually bankrupt.
The pro-choice lobby rests their arguments on the fact that women's sexuality (and its consequences) is out of the reach of government, and argue that there is no interest prior to birth because there's no individual, viable life. That's the core of their premise. That's it. The "shame" and psychological trauma arguments of adoption are equally applicable to strippers, who as a group have a lot of issues (which is in part why they're strippers).
That's why it seems silly to me that they aren't outraged with the stripper ban. Remember, too, that these are the same people who DON'T believe that laborers can "just go get another job."
I happen to believe that there IS an interest in local communities regulating strip clubs. I disagree with the Seattle rules, but don't think they're an improper governmental exercise.
I just think it's interesting that "pro-choice" is only for abortion and not for anything else the left disagrees with. I understand the outrage from those who think abortions is baby murder. I don't understand the outrage from those who are so disinterested in so many other, more fundamental personal freedoms (housing, guns, health choices like smoking, etc.)
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