Gay prostitution should be criminal

[BurtWorm]

Poll question: Gay prostitution should be criminal

[Liberal Veteran]

1. Um, why only gay prostitution?

:shrug:

I think prostitution should be legal and regulated.

[BurtWorm]

2. There's a lot of outrage here lately about gay prostitution

in the Gannon threads. I wanted to see how consistent the outrage is.

[bowens43]

5. You are misunderstanding the posts.

The outrage is not about gay prostitution, it's about hypocrisy.

[BurtWorm]

6. "It's not about the sex. It's about the lies."

Remember that line?

[bowens43]

20. Yes I do.

It in fact, it's kind of the point of the whole issue. Here we not only have lies, gay prostitution and sex, we have the party of 'family values' defending all three because it is one of their own.

Hypocrisy.

[BurtWorm]

23. So this is just about hypocrisy.

Whoopie. :eyes:

[cynatnite]

9. Well.....

There was some 'outrage' here over a prostitute being in the white house.

[bowens43]

21. Sarcastic outrage.

[applegrove]

11. I think you miss the point. Even those of us who would want to

see prostitution legalized (so it could be regulated) make a point of jumping on this story not because it is about 'gay' or 'prostitution' in particular. But because it is about the White House using someone who engaged in illegal activity, with potential blackmail vulnerability, to walk into the White House ever day and ask questions of the President. And who actually did. And they also aloud this person to ask questions of Ambassador Wilson regarding the 'Valerie Plane affair' regarding a 'CIA memo'. They being whoever told him what 'questions' and 'information' needed to be imparted to Ambassador Wilson.

It could be about a 'secular civics teacher' 'marajuana-user' lobbing softball questions at the President (that spill propaganda in the very way they are asked), etc.etc..... so long as there were sites on the web that showed her smoking up and soliciting to buy drugs, it would be the same story.

[BurtWorm]

16. Potential blackmail vulnerability?!

You mean it IS about the "gay" and the "prostitution." Why not just come out and admit it.

[applegrove]

27. When they do background checks to look for potential blackmail

vulnerability they ask not just about sexual peccadilloes (not that gay would be considered a peccadillo in my neck of the woods, but in the phony lives of politicians, you know - politicians are different ...) and they ask about drugs too. They ask about past events. They want to know that there isn't some hidden truth or area of denial in somebody's psyche that will make them easily vulnerable to exploitation.

Having a marijuana habit and selling a little on the side and being involved with this White House staff would do it. Particularly in this administration!! Seeing as how the president will always be an addict to alcohol & narcotics.

So - in actual fact - neither 'gay' nor 'prostitute' are necessary for this story to have the wings it has.

[BurtWorm]

32. I got news for you. It has wings on DU and in left bloggerville

and nowhere else.

[applegrove]

34. Except for the special prosecutor who put Jeff's name on the list

of witnesses yesterday. Him too - eh? Which would mean the FBI would be interested and probably the whole CIA since they were the victims. And...I think that makes that aspect of the Gannon story interesting to the whole world. But only them - after that it stops. It is nobody, but nobody's business on Mars..

I agree with you that it is unfortunate that the guy spewing propaganda ended up with a second criminal career (ahhh second career as a criminal).

Also it is a crime to use propaganda against US citizens inside the US. So who knows? That is a whole other department.

[BurtWorm]

38. Yesterday Gannon's name went on the list?

Show me a link to that, would you please?

[applegrove]

39. Well if he is not on the list he should be?

Perhaps Jeff was more connected than even I thought. Perhaps he was one of the good guys. Maybe Jeff worked for the investigation into the VP affair. How the hell do I know?

You certainly think you do.

Any reason why you seem to think you know more than one could find out by reading a newspaper, a blog, or watching the news in the last month?

[BurtWorm]

42. He's been very cute about whether or not he's seen the documents.

This suggests to me that he hasn't seen them, but he wants people to think he has. He said in an interview with Editor and Publisher that e is not on the list of subpeonaed journalists after all. He said he was visited by the FBI in connection with the Plame business, probably because he tried to make it sound as if he had seen the documents in an interview with Wilson and in an interview he himself gave, for some stupid reason, to Talon.

This interview was published last Friday, by the way. I read it yesterday.

[applegrove]

47. Dam you - you sent me to the White House!! That is cruel. I had to

look at George Bush for 2 seconds before I could 'unrender' the page.

Now I know for sure you are some sort of feeper. ***hole!

[BurtWorm]

48. Mwahahahahahahaha!!

:evilgrin:

[rman]

12. just a few noisy people

as usual

[Liberal Veteran]

26. I think you are mistaking schadenfrued for disapproval.

Just like when William Bennett claims to be virtuous but is a compulsive gambler.

[BurtWorm]

31. I can appreciate schadenfreude, in both cases.

But with respect to Gannon, he's been outed, caught with his pants way, way down. I don't think there's anything more to get him on. I think people are piling on him because he's an easy target--a blowhard freeper.

It's not that I think he's had enough punishment. It's that I can't bear to see lefties acting like freepers themselves. I'd like to see a general stock-taking over this and a pause in the hysterical rush to conspiracy-theorize. People are so desperate to nail Bush that they will jump on anything that looks like a hammer, whether or not it really is one.

I can't get over this sick feeling that while we've been having our fun at Gannon's expense, the right has continued along wreaking vastly more havoc. We got this pathetic zhlub, and they got Eason Jordan--actually, more than Jordan, they got someone who criticized their precious war. While we pick on idiots like Gannon, they are hard at work silencing anyone in the media who actually has the guts to say anything critical of them.

[donheld]

46. I've seen very few posts about the Prostitution as the problem

it's the hypocracy that is causing all the fuss.

PS: isn't ALL prostitution illegal?

[MnFats]

3. agreed. then you regulate it & eliminate associated crime.

much safer for all concerned.
hell, Bush could tax it and balance the budget!

[Walt Starr]

8. "Bush could tax it and balance the budget!"

Just on the tac revenue from White House aides alone!

[Colorado Blue]

29. Agree!

[jody]

4. What about political prostitution? n/t

[Walt Starr]

7. What to do in the future is not the point

Prostitution, gay or straight, is currently illegal in Washington D.C., Maryland, Delaware, and Texas.

That's the point.

:eyes:

Why you must defend Guckert continuously is beyond me.

[BurtWorm]

10. I'm not defending Guckert. I'm bothered by another kind of hypocrisy

here at DU.

[Walt Starr]

14. Be bothered all you want

You come off as supporting Guckert to me.

[BurtWorm]

22. I don't give a shit about Guckert.

He got what was coming to him. But I don't think there's any more to him than meets the eye, so to speak. I think people here are barking up the wrong fish. ;)

[cynatnite]

13. I'm on the post here

I always wonder why a person would sell their body for money. I can't possibly imagine anyone wanting to be one when they grow up.

I don't have a problem with consensual sex between adults, but when it comes to selling yourself....I don't know.

[MsTryska]

15. ummm...isn't it already illegal?

all prostitution was, i thought.


well except for in Nevada.

[BurtWorm]

18. The question is *should* it be criminal?

Should we view gay hustlers as criminal?

[Goldmund]

24. Should cocaine use be criminal?

[BurtWorm]

25. That's another thread.

(No.) :hi:

[Goldmund]

30. Well then,

it shouldn't matter that Bush, who specifically enacted laws which sent thousands of cocaine users to prisons in Texas, was himself a cocaine user?

And that's just one angle in which it matters: ideological hipocrisy.

Another angle is this: why are laws in this country more and more becoming simply handy tools for enacting political agendas? They only apply if you are not instrumental to that agenda. Otherwise, you can make a profession out of an illegal activity (like Gannon -- I agree it SHOULDN'T be illegal, but it is), and you will have no consequences even if the highest levels of the government are aware of what you do? (and it's stupendeously naive to think they didn't know) It works both on the individual and collective levels: they literally execute demographic engineering with drug laws targeting inner-city neighborhoods.

And finally, and maybe most importantly: why did the White House get THIS GUY, of all people, to pitch them softballs? The dude was a ticking time-bomb! It doesn't matter that I DON'T DIRECTLY CARE that he's a hooker -- I am sure that most of Bush's base does care. I'm sure every Freeper would give his or her right arm to be allowed access to Bush for some personal boot-licking -- why JEFF GANNON?!?!

[BurtWorm]

37. I don't follow part one of your reply.

It doesn't follow from my response to your question, and it doesn't follow from the supposition of this poll, which is that most DUers, even those making a lot of noise about Gannon's life after dark, really have no objection to what Gannon does after dark.

I agree with part two of your reply. But I don't think most people at DU are thinking about drug laws while posting about Gannon. I know I'm not.

And part three, this seems puzzling if you're thinking in terms of the perfect Rovian conspiracy theory. Why would Rove handpick this ticking time bomb? Well the simple answer is that Rove did not pick him. He accidentally happened. But if I were a devious bastid like most of think Rove is, and I saw this accident happening, I would be laughing my head off about how distracted the opposition was becoming over him. I might even try to encourage them to keep their eye on the Gannon, so they'd take their eye of the Judy Miller, and the Novack, and the Social Security privatization scheme, and the $82 billion for Iraq, and the disappearing billions that already went to Iraq...

[Goldmund]

40. k...

Part one: The administration who literally has their moralistic, and specifically gay-bashing agenda, to thank for being in office, according to even conservative analysts -- grants special press favors for a gay hooker? That's equivalent to being in office based on your "tough on crime/war on drugs" agenda, while being a cocaine user yourself.

Part two: whether most people on DU are thinking about it or not, I am. And I think that a lot of people are, if not exactly in those terms: this "you can't touch us, we can do whatever the fuck we want" attitude is what's pissing off a lot of people here.

Part three: I don't know the answer to that. But I do know that Rove is not omnipotent, and that on balance, I don't see how this could be a good story for Bush. If they needed distraction, firing Rummy and appointing Lieberman would have provided a much more favorable distraction, don't you think?

[Goldmund]

41. I'll repost this in the other thread, let's continue there

[BurtWorm]

43. You're begging the question.

It has not been established that the Bush people "hired" Gannon. It's very doubtful in my opinion that they did. See, people are having trouble wrapping their minds around this question: why, if they're such fucking geniuses, did they hire this guy?! That should give everyone here pause to think, "They probably *didn't* hire him. I probably just *wish* they had hired him cause they'd be in really deep shit if they were that stupid!"

[Goldmund]

45. If that is established, I will stand corrected.

But knowing everything I know about this White House, and based on statements by the press corps themselves -- you don't just waltz into George Dubya's press-room. You don't just get to ask him questions even IF you are in that press-room. The WHITE HOUSE gave him daily passes. All this leads me to think that it is AT LEAST a very legitimate question.

[MsTryska]

49. Oh well in that case....

i don't care what 2 consenting adults do.


so no, we shouldn't view gay hustlers, or any other type of prostitute as illegal.

[Lilith Velkor]

17. Absolutely not. Nor should straight prostitution.

You seem to be missing multiple points here.

[giant_robot]

19. It shouldn't be.

But it is.

[Gman]

28. Wanted to vote "Strongly Disagree" but...

I voted Republicans only. Hey, they very obviously need help with their loftily ambiguous morals so its the least we can do. And, it makes great political fodder when they get caught!

Everybody else, I couldn't care less if they pay for it or not whether it be gay or straight sex. That's their business and their money.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Generator]

35. Only for Gay Republicans

Why should the other side have a monopoply on hypocrisy?

Let's play...harball.:evilgrin:


Or if you wanna play you gotta pay..in the big house.

Ahh...who gives a crap.

Actually though, you are missing the point.

His being a manwhore is just a bonus.

The point is he was given access by the White House under the guise of being a journalist when he is nothing of the sort. He is a Republican party plant. He is a propaganda stooge. The press corps is supposed to ask REAL questions...ah ha..otherwise the press corps might as well go away. The point is that the media is all becoming very whore-like and in agreement with the adminstration whose policies they are supposed to question as proxy for the American people. They are supposed to represent ALL OF US becaue you nor I has access to ask Mr. Bush a damn thing. They do.

Fake reporter, fake news, fake President, fake reality.

[dsc]

36. It is in fact, illegal

I think it shouldn't be but it is. And illegal activity makes one subject to blackmail. I am uniformly against outing but this is a different thing. He engaged in illegal activity and we can't discuss the illegal activity without discussing with whom he engaged in the illegal activity. This is relevant to the story.

On edit it would have been nice if his illegal activity were say drug use or murder or something else, but it wasn't. This time it was a male prostitute with male clients.

[Fescue4u]

44. Isnt it already?