Oops, there's that word again.
What a swell place the world will be when we're all equal.
Posted on 01/04/2014 11:21:25 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
OTTAWA - Canada’s Catholic bishops will maintain their opposition to prostitution despite the Supreme Court of Canada’s Dec. 20 ruling striking down Canada’s prostitution laws.
“The bishops of Canada and the CCCB will continue to teach Catholic values on the sacred role of sexuality in building a committed, loving relationship between husband and wife,” said Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops media relations director Rene Laprise in an e-mail. “As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains (no. 2355), prostitution injures the human dignity of all those engaged in it. Furthermore, it reduces human persons to instruments of profit and sexual pleasure.
“While recognizing that destitution, coercion and violence are concerns that society needs to take into careful consideration, the Church across Canada will continue working with other religious and social organizations to limit all forms of human trafficking, including prostitution,” he said.
In a message responding to Pope Francis’ New Year’s message for World Peace Day, CCCB president Archbishop Paul-Andre Durocher also touched on prostitution.
“Our Pope deplores the presence of criminal organizations that profit from the sale of drugs, corruption, human trafficking and prostitution,” Durocher said. “Persons involved in such organizations or doing business with them should seriously listen to the call of Pope Francis: 'In the heart of every man and woman is the desire for a full life, including that irrepressible longing for fraternity which draws us to fellowship with others and enables us to see them not as enemies or rivals, but as brothers and sisters to be accepted and embraced.'
“How shall we help our brothers and sisters free themselves from the scourge of organized crime?” he asked.
The Supreme Court suspended its judgment for a year to give Parliament a chance to respond. The Catholic Civil Rights League has urged its followers to write Justice Minister Peter MacKay and their own Members of Parliament to introduce “a new law that will combat prostitution in a charter-compliant way.”
The league intervened at all court levels in the case “to give voice to the moral values shared by the majority of Canadians.”
“Despite the excessive attention given by the media to the shouts of joy from the plaintiffs in the case, these changes aren’t really about making it easier to work as a prostitute; rather, they are about pimping, living off the avails and public solicitation,” the league said. “In other words, activities that involve either exploitation of a vulnerable population or the forced exposure to the trade of neighbours and bystanders.”
The unanimous Court decision, written by Chief Justice Beverley MacLachlin, noted that prostitution itself is legal in Canada and that this decision concerning the laws around it were not determining whether prostitution should be legal or not. The laws against communicating for the purposes of prostitution, living on the avails and keeping a brothel were struck down for violating the Charter’s Section 7 right to security of the person. They prevented prostitutes from working in safer environments indoors, properly screening their clients and from hiring bodyguards or security staff, the decision said.
Conservative MP Joy Smith, one of Canada’s foremost experts on human trafficking, said the ruling deprives police of “important legal tools to tackle sex trafficking and organized crime.”
“Despite this ruling, the debate around prostitution is hardly settled,” she said in a statement. “There are those who wish to legalize and normalize the industry, those who wish to criminalize all aspects of the industry, and finally those, like myself, who recognize prostitution as an industry that is inherently harmful to women and girls and therefore must be eliminated.”
Smith has been advocating laws based on the so-called Nordic model, reflecting laws in Sweden and Norway that target the buyers of sex.
“Countries that have legalized and regulated prostitution have seen sexual exploitation, human trafficking and violence towards women and girls increase drastically,” she said, noting a 2012 study of 150 countries showed this increase, while those adopting the Nordic model “have seen a significant decrease in prostitution and sex trafficking.”
“The Nordic model of prostitution is effective due to its three approaches: explicitly criminalizing the purchase of sexual services, a national awareness campaign to educate the public that the purchase of sexual services is harmful to women, and finally strong support programs for those who seek to exit prostitution,” she said.
Smith pointed out many police forces across Canada already reflect the approach vulnerable persons and groups are victimized and harmed by prostitution.
“Prostitution must be eliminated because it dehumanizes and degrades humans and reduces them to a commodity to be bought and sold,” she said. “Legalizing prostitution is a direct attack on the fundamental rights and freedoms of women, girls and vulnerable people. In the same regard, continuing to criminalize the women and vulnerable populations being prostituted creates barriers that prevent them from escaping prostitution and entrenches inequality.”
Delegates at 2013 Conservative Policy Convention in Calgary Oct. 31-Nov. 2 passed a resolution put forward by Smith that says the Conservative Party “rejects the concept of legalizing the purchase of sex, declares “human beings are not objects to be enslaved, bought or sold” and that the party “will develop a Canada-specific plan to target the purchases or sex as well as any third party attempting to profit from the purchase of sex.”
You expect legislators to uphold prostitution laws when they are whores themselves? Half of them probably use the sevices of prostitutes. When you have rulers that are immoral don’t expect them to side with any legislation that has anything to do with morality or decency...lol
How long until speaking out against prostitution becomes a hate crime?
I was wondering that myself. There has always been a tendency (among men, at least!) to romanticize prostitution, that is, the prostitute with a heart of gold, "Pretty Woman," the Hollywood Madam, etc. They also romanticize themselves. Just guys looking for a quick pick-me-up but still just being ok guys.
But what man would like to be a prostitute - having to be sexually used by the violent, brutal, crazy, diseased, ugly (or even nasty Hollywood stars) as a way of making a living?
Most women and boys who "go into" prostitution certainly do not do so voluntarily, but now it's going to become an okay "career choice" and they're probably going to be made to feel that they're inegalitarian and discriminatory for wanting to get out of it.
Combine this with the fact that approval of pedophilia is certainly headed our way and we have a problem. The psychological establishment is now beginning to describe "minor attracted" individuals as simply being born that way, which is the magic formula to get whatever insane thing you want to do legitimized and even enshrined in the law.
Not anything that is wrong should be illegal.
I can see arguments for and against legalizing prostitution, but I think it is entirely appropriate for the Church to continue to oppose it.
I got into an argument, once, with a liberal on the issue of legalizing marijuana. She was in favor, and the libertarian in me was in favor. But I was was the opinion that even if it was legal, companies should still be able to fire people for failing blood tests, and she was horrified by the idea.
It was her opinion that if the government decided that it was legal, than everyone should be required to consider it acceptable. And that, I’m afraid, is what is wrong with liberalism.
Whoreaphopic hate speech!
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-TLG_yu8klaE/Ur9wOz_c-FI/AAAAAAAAss4/ZO_BS65lsY8/w506-h383/A%2Blie%2Bdoesn%2527t%2BBECOME%2BTruth%2521.jpg")
Just a technicality of course, but what commandment prohibits prostitution?
Spot on! Legal does not mean moral, right, acceptable or even desirable it just means no jail if you do it. On the other morals are not laws nor should they necessarily be so.
How many women would want to make a living as a coal miner, or many of the other unhealthy, dirty, dangerous, and uncomfortable jobs that men routinely do?
Even with the "women in combat" push, that's mainly so women officers can qualify for high rank, by having been deemed to have served in a "combat arms" branch. If you told women enlistees that they would, in their first six months of enlistment, have to do a tour climbing up and down the mountains of Afghanistan in severe weather, dodging Taliban snipers, female enlistment would drop to close to zero.
Oh c’mon Mr. Bishop a girl needs to make a buck somehow. no?
I would add: there are LOTS of male prostitutes, young men and boys who service the AIDS-ridden homosexuals. Many of them are not even gay, but have little choice.
““How shall we help our brothers and sisters free themselves from the scourge of organized crime?” he asked.”
Quit criminalizing that which doesn’t harm you directly would be a pretty good start.
Well, then why should only the rich be able to afford prostitutes?
We already have “Obamaphones”, now we can have “Obamawhores.”
Obama will just pay for it by putting on VAT tax as a percentage of the Catholic offering plate.
Excellent question.
I think there’s a difference between doing hard work and doing degrading work. Being a coal miner is hard, but it’s not like being screwed (literally) and degraded every day.
Women work hard, too - things like working in laundries, fast food places, factories, etc. But it’s not the same as prostitution.
Sexual sins are obviously prohibited, and that would include either using or being a prostitute.
But you’re skipping by the basic question: would you want your daughter to be a prostitute? Or your sister? Or your wife? Or even your son?
Well, I probably wouldn't like it, but then again, I don't like my son being a cop.
These are contractual matters between consenting adults and are not anyone else's business.
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