The thread devolved into name calling regarding the term ‘bigot’. Basically many people declared that the only possible opposition to SSM stems from bigotry, that there is no reason other than that. My argument and that of some others has been that they oppose it on religious grounds, which is not the same as personal hatred. That declaring it bigotry demonizes religious belief that believes that homosexuality is sinful.
As this hijack of that thread was the most interesting part of that debate to me, I thought I’d give it its own thread and change the context a little bit.
What about opposition to prostitution on religious grounds? Is that a form of bigotry? Personally, I think prostitution should be legal (for real, I’m not playing Devil’s Advocate) and that the only reasons to oppose prostitution are religious reasons, and yet it’s illegal everywhere. Registered prostitutes who could call the cops would have legal protection so it would be better for them. The state could shut down the dirty and diseased ones like we do with unclean restaurants, so it would be better for the Johns. It would put it all behind closed doors and everyone would know where to look if they wanted to go see a prostitute. So is it merely bigotry that keeps Prostitution illegal?
At the heart of this lies the question of whether or not opposing something on purely religious grounds is by its very nature, bigotry.
Nobody is born a prostitute or a patron of prostitutes. So these are choices people make. And most of the actions that are taken against prostitutes are directly related to the act of prostitution. You don’t hear people saying that prostitutes shouldn’t be allowed to get married or adopt children or things like that.
So actions against gays are different. People probably are born gay (I realize this is still an open question but the evidence does seem to indicate it’s an inherent condition). And the actions taken against gays often go far beyond anything directly related to the act of gay sex itself.
In the religious terms that this thread is discussing, it’s moved beyond hating the sin and turned into hating the sinner. And that, in my opinion, makes it bigotry.
Why should religious belief determine the rights of U.S. citizens? Isn’t it bigotry when you decide that a certain group of people you believe to be “sinners” don’t deserve the same tax status you take for granted simply because you have determined that your god isn’t too keen on their bedroom activities?
Is religious grounds the sole reason prostitution is outlawed? Yes, our “puritanical” take on human sexuality is a huge reason the profession is looked upon with disdain. But then, porn is subject to the same derision and yet, it’s legal, though highly regulated, despite the fact it is constantly under fire.
Honestly, I can’t come with any other reasons why prostitution is outlawed and by and large, I agree with decriminalizing prostitution (heck, drugs too, for that matter). But I don’t call people who rail against prostitution bigots. Prude seems to be a more apt term.
So it is ok to use religious grounds to regulate free choice then?
People are probably born schizophrenic too. That doesn’t mean we allow any manifestation of their behavior. I want to be clear here, while I agree with you about homosexuality, basically I am trying to ask whether or not religious belief can be reduced to mere bigotry when it comes to limiting others outside of those belief systems.
No, it’s not, because they don’t want to legitimize the sin. Yes, in some cases it does become about hating the sinner, but that’s irrelevant to the issue, because the issue is about whether or not we legitimize the “sin”.
*I am not arguing that homosexuality IS a sin.
Is porn really “highly regulated”? I might say it’s generally regulated, in that child porn isn’t allowed, porn can’t be sold to minors, and states have some restrictions on where businesses are located. But it seems to me, especially in the age of the internet, that it’s not that highly regulated.
If that’s true, why? Is it because of high demand? Or because access is so easy via the internet, or simply that it’s too big a business to reasonably decimate without putting a lot of people out of work?
To bring it back to the OP, if demand for prostitution were high and access easier, would we see a rollback of the laws restricting it?
Well, I think the obvious reason is that prostitution is an occupational choice, whereas homosexuality is more akin to gender and race in the sense that it’s who the person is not what they do.
I think you are overlooking the worry that many women who choose prostitution do not do so completely voluntarily. There are some who engage in prostitution out of direct coercion. Some also make a case that certain structural features of our society exert pressures on some women that others are not subjected to and that this vitiates the idea that prostitution was the free choice of these women. My supposition is that if you catalogued the attributes and histories of prostitutes, you would find higher than average rates of poverty, racial/ethnic group membership, pre-prostitution drug abuse, childhood and adult domestic violence, and general adverse circumstances. In short, while direct coercion may be rare (although it absolutely occurs), it is not the only problematic practice if you understand liberty to include its positive, as well as negative, aspects (in Isaiah Berlin’s terminology).
I don’t see how prostitutes are a specific class of people. Anyway, while I don’t think it should be illegal, I can come up with the following non-religious reasons for making it illegal:
In practice, it often results in exploitation of the prostitute.
It helps the spread of disease.
It often leads to violence and other crimes.
It can promote what is effectively sex slavery, kidnapping, other social ills.
There are probably more. Anyway, it’s not illegal everywhere – I think it’s legal in Nevada (though not in Las Vegas) and it’s certainly legal in other countries.
I don’t really want to defend the above points, but those are non-religious reasons for outlawing it. And, I believe that many non-religious people are against it (I believe that some feminists and social conservatives find common ground on this subject and on pornography).
I’m not sure this was the best example, since there are practical and societal ills associated with prostition, even where it’s legal. How about blue laws or Sunday store-closing rules instead?
Prostitution is sort of like marijuana possession. It’s a way for cops to arrest bad people who they can’t prove have committed a real crime.
That said, prostitution has all sorts of ugly side effects you don’t really want, and there’s no guarantee that legalizing it would clean it up the way it has in Amsterdam. Prostitutes prey on drunk, naive tourists. One popular prostitute scam is called a “trick roll”, where one or two hookers goes up to a room with a drunk guy, poisons or assaults them to render them unconscious, and steals their stuff. That’s the type of real crime cops hope to prevent by busting up prostitution rings.
I’m not sure if the cops are actually doing any good in this area, though. People are reluctant to report real crimes committed against them by prostitutes, because they’re afraid of getting in trouble themselves. The police will resist making prostitution legal because they see how nasty and destructive the lifestyle is, and they’re convinced legalizing it will cause it to expand, making their jobs harder and the public less safe. What it’s really doing is providing a mask for criminals, who can do almost anything they want to their victims because of the consequences (whether real or perceived) of them reporting it.
Yes, that’s obvious but it doesn’t answer the question. Is ok to regulate the lives of the general populace for purely religious reasons? For beliefs that are not even held by everyone?
Seems to me that regulation would cut down on coercion, not increase it. There could be legitimate institutions that people could join, trade associations and the like that would have legal defense teams available to stamp out coercive prostitution.
And how is this mitigated by punishing the prostitute?
I don’t think prostitution is illegal for religious reasons. I think it’s illegal for real honest-to-goodness detriment-to-society reasons, whether they’re mistaken or not.
Couldn’t a secular reason be argued that it is simply a public health hazard to allow such a thing to go on? I mean, one could argue against that, but it does seem to support a rational goal independent of religious idea.
Of course, if you are talking about gay prostitutes, then they should be given the key to the city…
Whether criminalizing prostitution is effective in addressing the issues I brought up above notwithstanding, I think it does show that there are plausible non-religious motives for doing so, which is what I understood your question to ask.
Ok. But let’s compare another health hazard that people in our society are allowed to engage in: Tobacco. Smoking kills far, far more people that STDs from prostitution could ever hope to do. Yet people are still allowed to engage in this risky behavior.