Should prostitution be legalized?

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anhphan said:
I think it is a difficult decision because whether prostitution is legalized or not, there is still rule-breaking.
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Consider the logic at play here. Make something that is wrong legal because it’s going to happen anyway. If we apply this to another issue that is clearly wrong, does it still hold water? For example, theft. Make theft legal because breakins will happen anyway. Good idea? If you don’t like that example, pick anything else that violates inherent human dignity. The purpose of making such acts illegal is to deter people from committing them.

No consequence, not even the death penalty will stop everyone from breaking the law. But laws do stop most people. It doesn’t follow that we should make something legal because it will happen anyway.
 
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I think that prostitution should be legal but soliciting a prostitute should remain illegal. My reasoning is that prostitution often goes hand in hand with human trafficking, exploitation of minors, and domestic violence. It’s not always consensual or straightforward and often victims end up with a criminal record that just makes them less likely to escape the situation and have a normal life. Putting the legal burden on the buyer and maybe third party procurers would make it easier for trafficking and abuse victims to reintegrate.
 
None of those are prohibitions on premarital sex. You can’t have marital sex in a public place.

You can still have sex for free

and I don’t think a sodomy law has been enforced in at least 50 years. A judge would laugh that right out of a courtroom.
 
anon65111186 said:
  1. Sex in public places
  2. Prostitution (all but Las Vegas)
  3. Sodomy (in some states, counties, cities)
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The portions of all Sodomy laws which criminalize any intimate consensual sexual conduct between adults acting in private (and not for money), whatever the sex of the participants, are unconstitutional. They were struck down in all 50 states by the US Supreme Court in 2003 in Lawrence vs Texas.
 
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JanSobieskiIII said:
None of those are prohibitions on premarital sex. You can’t have marital sex in a public place.

You can still have sex for free

and I don’t think a sodomy law has been enforced in at least 50 years. A judge would laugh that right out of a courtroom.
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Okay, fair enough but it was about what should be, not was or is the case in the US.
Thorolfr said:
The portions of all Sodomy laws which criminalize any intimate consensual sexual conduct between adults acting in private (and not for money), whatever the sex of the participants, are unconstitutional. They were struck down in all 50 states by the US Supreme Court in 2003 in Lawrence vs Texas.
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Same reply, what is constitutional is not always what is God’s will, and vice versa.
 
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anon65111186 said:
Same reply, what is constitutional is not always what is God’s will, and vice versa.
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As someone else asked above, if laws were being made in the US to conform to God’s law, whose version of God’s law should they conform to, the Catholic version, the Episcopalian version, the Unitarian version, the Muslim version, or the Jewish version, etc?
 
Thorolfr said:
As someone else asked above, if laws were being made in the US to conform to God’s law, whose version of God’s law should they conform to, the Catholic version, the Episcopalian version, the Unitarian version, the Muslim version, or the Jewish version, etc?
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The United States is a secular state so while it is a secular state (which it most likely always will be) the possibility of establishing a particular religion is null.

There is only one God.
 
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Secular laws are good but going and spreading immoral behavior under the name and guise of secularism is plain hypocritical and needs to stop.
 
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Anyone who thinks legalization (or decriminalization) of prostitution will make things better for women should read this article:

www.bbc.com

My work as a prostitute led me to oppose decriminalisation

Sabrinna Valisce worked as a prostitute for 25 years and long campaigned for decriminalisation. Now she describes herself as an "abolitionist".
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

The article is not sexually explicit, but it is very sad. Ms.Valisce describes how the prostitution business after decriminalization in New Zealand became much more abusive to prostitutes.
 
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The Church does not teach separation of Church and State as an ideal thing. It is acceptable, and sometimes a good in certain defined circumstances.

The Church teaches that the ideal state is a Catholic state. It is in the Vatican II documents.

Much evil has come into the world by secular governments gone wrong.
 
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Why must history repeat itself? Why must we have a society that always ends due to these kinds of things? A sexually immoral society is a society doomed to die out.
 
Of all of the 600 Laws of the Torah that Moses gave, not one prohibits women from selling sexual services. That practice is looked down upon to be sure, but it does not seem to violate any OT commandment.
 
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Some people here are equating moral = legal and legal = moral. That only happens in theocracies (Iran or Saudi Arabia, for example…want to live there?).

The US and virtually every Western country is non-sectarian. Some are aggressively so–France. If there is no established religion, you have to treat all religions equally. You would be wrong to pass laws forbidding something that is approved in another religion (Jews and Muslims would allow early-term abortion, for example; Hindus had temple prostitutes; Muslims think drinking alcohol is forbidden). The exception would be if there was something the general consensus of the population thought should be illegal, even if a small group thought it was OK (child marriage by fringe LDS extremists, etc.)

Abolitionists got alcohol outlawed, but how did that turn out?

So to answer the question directly, any law legalizing or outlawing prostitution should have (name removed by moderator)ut from actual prostitutes. It shouldn’t be 80-year-old men deciding what’s good for them, it should be them, plus other affected groups (wives, contagious disease experts, etc.).
 
I guess prostitution is different from abortion because… well because of trafficking. If the case could be made you get less human trafficking and ultimately less prostitution if it is legal than I guess you have a case.
 
Erikaspirit16 said:
Some people here are equating moral = legal and legal = moral. That only happens in theocracies (Iran or Saudi Arabia, for example…want to live there?).
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Not all things that are legal are moral. A good many of them are though.

Saudia Arabia is an Islamic monarchy, and has sharia law as its foundation. Iran is a hybrid of theocracy and republicanism under Kamenei, the Supreme Leader.

Almost no one wants to live there from Western countries. My sister lives in Saudi, but it’s her husband’s job in the oil industry.
 
Question:
Murder is against the law. Thou shalt not kill is a “religious” commandment.
Bank robbery is a crime. Thou shalt not steal is a “religious” commandment.
Are these U.S. laws a consequence of the civilian government establishing a law based on religion? And if so, do those who say that a secular society cannot make laws based on the tenets of a religion, object to them. Should the laws against murder and theft be abolished because they have a “religious” foundation?
And if they should remain, why then would laws against prostitution because it is an offensive behavior before the God of all monotheistic religions, be prohibited?
Just asking.
 
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