The Pro Life Party ? Um-hmmm...

Really? The Pro Life Party.

The Rethugs have gone out of their way over the years, ever since Roe v. Wade, to brand themselves as "pro-life". They even went so far as to make a bunch of huge-lettering "Choose Life" t-shirts available through churches and youth groups and whatnot, to the point where my pre-adolescent daughter came home with one from somewhere.

"Do you know what it means?" I asked her. She said she did, but it turned out to be one of those "kinda sorta a whole bunch but not really" things. After a little foray into parental education, she came away with a more balanced view, but I had to hand it to the Rethugs and their minions in the fundo churches: They do know how to brand an issue. Never mind that they don't really believe in what they are bible-thumping over. That doesn't matter. They are "Pro Life", which leaves the rest of us to be, what? Pro Death? That's really not working for us, is it? But that's what happens when we let them define us.

So what are we to make of the Pro Life Party now? Last week they erupted into frenzied applause when PRick Perry preened about the stage and crowed over the number of death row inmates he had murdered.

I didn't get to watch last night's "debate" for some technical reasons (satellite dish problems), but I awoke to the news that Crazy-Old-Man Ron Paul got the Teabaggers rockin' when he talked about "personal responsibility" and health care.

It appears that if you get sick and don't have insurance, or if your insurance cuts you off, that's pretty much on you. You should have known better and planned for it. That's what Ron Paul would have done to this hypothetical patient -- turned him over to the good graces of "Christian" charity. Society has no useful role in making the potentially ill be healthy or keeping the soon-to-be-dead from fulfilling their destiny as inhabitants of a morgue-bound body bag.

When moderator Wolf Blitzer called him on it -- "Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?" -- the crowd erupted into shouts of "Yeah!"

And they are the Pro-Life Party. Uhhhh, yeah... okay....

Oral Sex in Louisiana? David Vitter's Penis Involved?

Oral sex in Louisiana. If you're on the lookout for it, you're okay. Even if you pay hookers to get it, you're okay. But if you are that hooker with the idea of providing it as a quick (sometimes very quick) way to make a buck, you are ... a sex offender?!

Yep, you're right up there with child molesters and mother-rapers ("...and father-rapers, right there on the bench!") in the great state of Lousy-anna.

But all that could change with a lawsuit filed by Louisiana sex workers taking issue with this alleged "crime":

Louisiana is the only state that requires people who have been convicted of crimes that do not involve sexual violence or sex with minors to register as sex offenders. In 1994, Congress passed Megan's Law, also known as the Wetterling Act, which mandated that states create systems for registering sex offenders. The act was amended in 1996 to require public disclosure of the names on the registries and again in 2006 to require sex offenders to stay in the public registry for at least 15 years.

The Wetterling Act, also known as the Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act was clearly not targeted at prostitution. However, Louisiana lawmakers opted to apply the registry to the crime against nature statute as well, and at that moment started down the path to a new level of punishment for sex work. "This archaic law is being used to mark people with a modern-day scarlet letter," says attorney Alexis Agathocleus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, another party in the lawsuit. "Inclusion on the sex-offender registry violates basic constitutional equal protection principles and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment."

Louisiana is the only state that requires people who have been convicted of crimes that do not involve sexual violence or sex with minors to register as sex offenders. In 1994, Congress passed Megan's Law, also known as the Wetterling Act, which mandated that states create systems for registering sex offenders. The act was amended in 1996 to require public disclosure of the names on the registries and again in 2006 to require sex offenders to stay in the public registry for at least 15 years.

The Wetterling Act, also known as the Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act was clearly not targeted at prostitution. However, Louisiana lawmakers opted to apply the registry to the crime against nature statute as well, and at that moment started down the path to a new level of punishment for sex work. "This archaic law is being used to mark people with a modern-day scarlet letter," says attorney Alexis Agathocleus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, another party in the lawsuit. "Inclusion on the sex-offender registry violates basic constitutional equal protection principles and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment."

Louisiana is the only state that requires people who have been convicted of crimes that do not involve sexual violence or sex with minors to register as sex offenders. In 1994, Congress passed Megan's Law, also known as the Wetterling Act, which mandated that states create systems for registering sex offenders. The act was amended in 1996 to require public disclosure of the names on the registries and again in 2006 to require sex offenders to stay in the public registry for at least 15 years.
The Wetterling Act, also known as the Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act was clearly not targeted at prostitution. However, Louisiana lawmakers opted to apply the registry to the crime against nature statute as well, and at that moment started down the path to a new level of punishment for sex work. "This archaic law is being used to mark people with a modern-day scarlet letter," says attorney Alexis Agathocleus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, another party in the lawsuit. "Inclusion on the sex-offender registry violates basic constitutional equal protection principles and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment."

It's beyond me why the hapless hookers are always to blame when it comes to this stuff. Oh, wait a second. I know why, when it comes to Louisiana: David Vitter's penis is the US Senator from Louisiana, and it was hard to have such an upstanding representative of Family Values even arrested, let alone stuffed into that child molester wrapper. After all, he's never been one to shrink from his duties, even in the face of terrible state prostitution (okay, I'm stretching it, so to speak...).

So no, just forget about holding the Johns responsible. After all, they are just guys, and you know what guys are like...

And I guess New Orleans can write off any plans they might have had of hosting the Republican National Convention any time soon. Who can forget the stories of busloads of hookers converging on Manhattan and on Minneapolis (see Hookers and Blow: Welcome to the Republican Convention) for the last two conventions? Those good ole boy defenders of family values wouldn't want to contribute to the delinquency of sex offenders, would they?