Sex Hysteria!

The ACLU plans to appeal a recent 9th Circuit court ruling that upholds Nevada’s ban on advertising brothels in Clark (Las Vegas) and Washoe (Reno) counties.

From the Las Vegas Sun:

ACLU lawyer Allen Lichtenstein wrote in his petition: “Because brothels are licensed in Nevada, commercial speech concerning them is constitutionally protected.” Judges may find legal prostitution “personally distasteful, immoral or even socially harmful as public policy,” but “neither the panel’s own moral judgment, nor the social condemnation of prostitution by other states, can appropriately serve to justify a ban on truthful, lawful speech.”

And here is an interesting twist:

[Bobbi A. Davis, who operates the Shady Lady Ranch] said the ban on advertisement killed her effort to promote a male prostitute at her business. She said he got 10-15 female customers but that wasn’t enough to make it a going concern.

Man prostitution is new to Nevada, only being legalized recently.

So, for those wanting to keep score, Davis won at the federal district court level, lost at the 3-judge 9th Circuit Court level, and is now appealing to the ninth to hear the case en banc.

Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Nevada law that forbids legal brothels from advertising in Washoe and Clark counties, the only two counties where prostitution is illegal. For those unfamiliar with Nevada,  the city of Reno is in Washoe county and Las Vegas is in Clark county.

This is yet another case where the courts simply brush aside the First Amendment as being inoperative because the state has a conflicting interest.

Thomas Mitchell has a nice editorial blasting the decision in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, picking apart the high points of the court’s opinion.  The decision weighs the pros and cons of whether there is a benefit to be realized by the banning of the ads.  But the First Amendment doesn’t provide for an exception if the government can cook up a good reason to ban speech.

What is stunning about cases like this is the fact that the courts often invent exceptions like this to the First Amendment’s prohibition against government regulation of press freedom and the very institutions that depend on those freedoms remain largely mute.  In other words, the courts will do whatever they can get away with and, given the silence of the public, they can get away with a lot.