1997
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EDITORIAL WRITING |
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Don't stop free speech, just enforce the laws
August 28, 1996 - This lap-dancing thing has us puzzled. Ames Police Chief Dennis Ballantine says lap-dancing leads to
prostitution, so he wants it outlawed. (If you're of the generation that
doesn't know what lap-dancing is, read on. We'll get to a rather technical
definition in a few paragraphs.) As proof, he cites the arrest for
prostitution of a lap-dancer at Blondie's.
He says other lap-dancers have been involved in prostitution, too,
though there have been no other arrests.
Since lap-dancing regularly occurs at three Ames establishments,
you have to conclude one of two things:
1. Most lap-dancing ends with lap-dancing.
2. The police aren't enforcing the prostitution laws.
Neither one of those conclusions seems to warrant an ordinance to
make lap-dancing illegal, an ordinance that was given first approval by the
City Council Tuesday night.
If it doesn't lead to prostitution, why outlaw it?
If it does lead to prostitution, why not just enforce the
prostitution laws?
This is a dangerous slope the chief and the counsel have set foot
on. It's intruding into the private lives of people with the vaguest of
justifications and the slimmest of legality, though Ames City Attorney John
Klaus has found two federal cases that he says "have held that regulations
of this kind do not unconstitutionally burden essential rights of free
speech protected by the First Amendment." (Though there's not much talking
during lap-dancing, it is a form of speech, most scholars would agree.)
Nevertheless, "the Ames City Council may want to ask itself whether
the private conduct of consenting grown-ups is an appropriate subject for
its attention," the Iowa Civil Liberties Union said this week. "One could
wonder what the council would consider doing next: outlaw kissing on the
first date or necking in the back of a theater?"
Lap-dancing isn't exactly kissing. It is, in the words of the
proposed ordinance drawn up by Klaus, when an entertainer in a bar or
adult-entertainment business "shall fondle, caress or sit on the lap of any
customer on said premises if the entertainer presents a performance on the
premises while nude or so attired as to leave exposed the entertainer's
genitals, or pubic hair, or anus, or buttocks, or female breast, or female
breast with only the nipple covered."
It goes on to say that "'Fondle or caress' shall mean to bring any
part of the body into contact with the body of another, in a sportive or
suggestive manner, for the purpose of producing or experiencing sexual
arousal or excitement."
The proposed ordinance is as bizarre as the language is stilted.
Exactly who is going to determine the state of mind of the sportive or
affectionate lap-dancer? If she says she was lap-dancing merely for
entertainment - and that she certainly didn't intend to sexually excite the
owner of the lap - who can challenge her? Further, this seems to say that
lap-dancing is OK by people who aren't entertainers - the lady at the next
table, for instance - but is a "municipal infraction" if done by an
entertainer.
All that is amusing, but irrelevant.
For it's really quite simple.
You enforce laws by arresting the law breakers, not by harassing
everyone else.
If bank robbery is a problem, you don't outlaw banking.
If carjacking is a problem, you don't outlaw driving.
If street-walking is a problem, you don't outlaw walking.
Or, in this case, dancing.
Even if it's on someone's lap.
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