In order to secure itself a ‘Happy Ending’ to an otherwise unsuccessful session, the Rhode Island legislature has decided to hatchet its successful policy of allowing legal indoor sex-work. Seeing as how most sex workers prefer to keep very private, they make for a very easy scapegoat for Representatives and Senators who want to ‘feel good’ without having to tick too many people off. Rhode Islanders aren’t buying it, though.
A ProJo.com poll shows that support for even the most agreeable form of criminalization, criminalizing the purchase of sex, is only about 35%.
Still, even with two-thirds of the population’s support and thousands of requests to ‘tax and regulate’ instead of ‘incarcerate and re-incarcerate’, legislators are finding it very hard to do the right thing and vote ‘nay’ on bad policy. I can’t help but think that the main reason is Donna Hughes and her ‘army of two’ hounding the legislature and media daily, purporting to be the voice of truth and reason.
In order to get the real truth and reason out there, several concerned citizens (disclaimer: I am the webmaster) have put together a website with a summary of the issues and links to articles on the issue. Please point your browsers at Citizens Against Criminalization and read the whole thing. When you’re done, call your legislators and ask them to do the right thing, or at -least- table the issue until actual studies have been done in Rhode Island.