Box Turtle Bulletin

Sharlet on Maddow: US Government “At the Beck and Call” of the Family

Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, appeared on Rachel Maddow’s show tonight to counter some of the claims made by “The Family” member Bob Hunter on Tuesday’s show. Hunter had claimed that Sharlet disavowed much of his own book, that The Family was not involved in politics, and that Uganda’s Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo, one of the prime supporters of Uganda’s draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill, was not a member of the Family.

Sharlet revealed that just this week he had obtained a budget for The Family’s work in Africa “identifying (Sen.) Jim Inhofe (R-OK) as the designated point man selected to work with eleven African leaders, most of them Presidents including the President of Uganda Museveni, President of Rwanda Kagame and to work with them to help set their nations on a sort of a Jesus footing. … There’s a budget, there’s money, there is a support staff, it’s a very formal effort that he’s undertaking.”

Sharlet also said that the Senators use their status as U.S. Senators to open doors for the Family in Africa. Sharlet said of Hunter:

He explained to me that those senators who were traveling with The Family… I had made the mistake of saying that Mr. Hunter travels at the behest of the U.S. government. He corrected me. He said ‘No, Senators travel at the behest of me. I use them as bait; I use them as tools to reach those in power, and then we can go about trying to get them on this Jesus footing.

Rachel clarified that it is not the Family that is at the beck and call of the U.S. government, but that the U.S. government is at the beck and call of the Family.

Hunter had denied knowing Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo, implying that Buturo was not a member of The Family. Sharlet said he was puzzled by that, saying that Hunter had told him that establishing the Ministry of Ethics and Integrity had been created for The Family, and that Buturo “inherited” that position, along with his position in the Family. Buturo has since traveled overseas representing Uganda at Family events.

Oh yeah, we got a shout-out from Rachel as well. You can find the Scott Lively videos here.

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

Uganda Cabinet Member Says Anti-Gay Bill May Be Withdrawn

Uganda’s largest independent newspaper The Monitor is reporting that governmental officials are looking for a way out on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. According to The Monitor:

The State Minister for Investments, Mr Aston Kajara, yesterday said the government was looking at the Bill with the possibility of withdrawing it. “The government\’s official position is that we have enough laws to cover homosexuality acts,” Mr Kajara said. “Government did not sponsor this Bill. It is a private member\’s Bill. The government is studying it and we may talk to the honourable Member of Parliament (David Bahati) to consider withdrawing it.”

On December 11, a senior adviser to President Yoweri Museveni published an 0p-ed in the state-owned New Vision calling on Parliament to drop the bill.  At the time, we considered that a very encouraging sign, since nothing gets printed in New Vision unless it has some backing from within the government. That followed an op-ed posted just a few days earlier on the Uganda Media Centre web site, which normally operates as an official governmental clearing house for press statements. That op-ed said that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was not needed and that Parliament had other more important things to worry about.

Since then, there have been reports in outside media that others within the government were considering dropping the death penalty, but keeping other aspects of the wide-ranging and draconian bill intact. Some of those same reports were reported in Uganda’s independent press, but suggestions that the bill would be dropped have not been made publicly by members of Uganda’s government to Ugandan press. Until now, which is why this may well be a very significant development.

This doesn’t mean the bill is dead. Ardent supporters of the Bill vow a nationwide rally on January 19.  It has not been withdrawn, but it is encouraging that a member of Moseveni’s cabinet has given the government’s “official position” that the bill is not needed.

Update: Geoff Magga at Afrik.com also reports on Kajara’s statement. He also has this from Kajara, indicating that Uganda’s reputation is suffering among foreign investors:

“We are not happy with what is being said about Uganda because of the anti gay bill. Ever since the anti-gay bill was tabled, there has been outcries not only here but from allover the world against it. This is likely to affect the flow of foreign investors into the country,” Aston Kajara said.

The BBC has also picked up on the story, citing AFP as a source. But of course that is not the full story. Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsabe Buturo, who is also a member of the secretive American evangelical group known as The Family, insists that the bill will be ready for Parliamentary debate within the next three weeks.

Update: As I said, the bill is not dead. MP David Bahati, who introduced the legislation as a private member’s bill, refuses to budge.

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

Dvorak on Miller-Jenkins

In an article in the Washington Post, Petula Dvorak gets props for the best quote yet on Lisa Miller’s kidnapping of Isabella Miller-Jenkins. Well, actually, the two best quotes:

Miller told Newsweek two years ago that letting Isabella live with Jenkins would be like giving her child to the milkman.

Well, yeah — if you lived with the milkman, made love to him, bought a house with him, entered a civil union with him at a quaint resort blanketed in snow and bedecked with greenery, sat through fertility treatments that he helped pay for, let him catch the baby as you pushed and shared midnight burping and diaper duties — it would be just like giving your child to the milkman.

and my favorite:

Miller’s legal team said in court that a move to Vermont, with a new school and new friends, would be disruptive for a 7-year-old.

And going into hiding isn’t?

Virginia court orders Lisa Miller to turn over Isabella

Isabella Miller-Jenkins and Lisa Miller. Both are reported missing.

One of the arguments of those supporting Lisa Miller in her effort to hide Isabella Miller-Jenkins is that the order to turn Isabella over to her mother, Janet Jenkins, is issued in Vermont and not enforceable in Virginia. That argument may no longer be valid (Lynchburg News and Advance):

A court order filed Monday in Bedford County requires that a 7-year-old girl at the center of a custody battle involving a Forest woman be surrendered to the woman\’s former lesbian partner in Vermont.

Rebecca Glenburg, the Virginia American Civil Liberties Union attorney for Janet Jenkins, confirmed that the Bedford Juvenile and Domestic Relations court filed the order. She said it ensures that the Vermont court order requiring Lisa Miller to surrender the couple\’s daughter, Isabella Miller-Jenkins, is enforceable in Virginia.

A report from WSLS raises another interesting issue in relation to timing:

Miller\’s last known address is a rental property in Forest. The sheriff\’s office says neighbors haven\’t seen the mother and daughter since September.

If Miller has been in hiding since September, then it is even more peculiar that Debbie Thurman was relaying commentary from her as recent as December 4th. It does make Thurman’s protestations of ignorance less credible and raises the question as to whether Miller was assisted by persons who abetted her absconding with Isabella but who chose not to have the exact details so as to retain a level of deniability.

Were I the Bedford County Sheriff’s Department, I would start questioning with Thurman and others at Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University with whom Miller has had close contact, including those with whom she may have resided in the past.

UPDATE: 4/27/11

Debbie Thurman has provided us with the following response:

Do you think this has not been looked into by “the authorities”? It has.
They are the only ones who needed to hear from me on it. It was properly
dismissed last year as insignificant.

Adventist magazine draws attention to Uganda’s Kill Gays bill

Spectrum is “a journal established to encourage Seventh-day Adventist participation in the discussion of contemporary issues from a Christian viewpoint”. As such, it is uniquely qualified to discuss the recent statements coming from Seventh Day Adventist religious leaders in Uganda in support of the proposed Anti-Homosexuality bill.

Spectrum’s Alexander Carpenter has written an online commentary expressing concern about the bill and the way in which support for it is contradictory to church policy.

Given this attempt to mix church and state, it is particularly troubling that the highest ranking Adventist leader in Uganda would support this law.

Furthermore, the law states that,

Where the offender is a corporate body or a business or an association or a non-governmental organization, on conviction its certificate of registration shall be cancelled and the director or proprietor or promoter shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for seven years.

Thus, if, as has happened in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a church administrator turns out to be gay, John Kakembo’s support for this bill could actually threaten the work of the church in Uganda.

Given the parameters outlined in the Working Policy of the church, John Kakembo’s common cause on the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 lies outside our religious liberty principles, breaks church policy, and is opposite the goal of following Christ in helping, not jailing, the least of these.

In response, the Seventh-day Adventist Church has issued the following statement:

The church has made official statements on the issue of homosexuality. These continue to be our expressed position. Our inquiries with the Uganda Union indicate that not all that is being reported or interpreted in the media coverage is factual.

Our office has taken steps to inform the Uganda Union president\’s office about the officially articulated position of the church regarding homosexuality. There will be on-going communication with the East-Central Africa Division and the church administration in Uganda.

I am uncertain what the church means by “not all that is being reported or interpreted in the media coverage is factual”. If that indicates that the church leader in Uganda, John Kakembo, has been falsely claimed as a supporter of the bill, then I am encouraged.

If, however, it indicates that the church is dismissive of public criticism of the bill, then that is most distressing. And sadly, while the statement of church principles does mention compassion and value, the only principles stated consist of condemnation of homosexuality and same-sex relationships and do not clearly articulate a position on criminalization of gay persons.

It is difficult to determine from this vague statement whether the Seventh-day Adventist Church opposes the bill or if it stands in the unique position of being the only denomination in the West to publicly endorse the death penalty as punishment for homosexuality.

I would encourage the church, and all Adventists, to read the language of the bill and issue a statement strongly condemning it as contrary to the teachings of Christ. Until it does so, the only position on record is that of Kakembo’s announcement of Seventh-day Adventist endorsement and of the Church’s refusal to refute that endorsement.

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

Mrs. Robinson Is an Adulterous Cougar

"Mrs Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?" Kirk McCambley is now 21.

Anti-gay Northern Ireland MP Iris Robinson and wife of Northern Ireland’s First Prime Minister Peter Robinson, said in 2008 that homosexuality was worse than pedophilia and that gay people suffered a mental illness that could be “cured.” Well now she has recently admitted to some mental troubles herself. At about the same time she made those statements, Robinson was having an affair with a friend who needed “consoling” following a death. What’s more, Robinson herself then had a mental breakdown of her own and attempted suicide, and announced in December that she is stepping down from politics.

Now the BBC is reporting that the young lover Mrs. Robinson took up was 19 years old at the time. Robinson was 59, more than three times Kirk McCambley’s senior. McCambley now runs a cafe in South Belfast after Robinson encouraged friends to invest in his business. The cafe is located in a visitor’s center built by the Castlereagh Borough Council. Robinson is also a member of that council.

Equality NJ is going back to court

On October 25, 2006, the Supreme Court of the state of New Jersey unanimously found that the constitution of that state requires that same-sex couples be provided with all of the rights, benefits, and responsibilities as heterosexual married couples. But by a 4 to 3 split they allowed the state to determine the method by which to provide equality.

The state legislature opted the next month for civil unions.

However, civil unions have not provided New Jersey’s same-sex couples with all of the rights, benefits and responsibilities as married couples. This was determined in a study and, more importantly, conceded during today’s debate by the opponents of marriage equity.

So Equality New Jersey is going back to court to ask the Judiciary to force the legislature to provide full marriage. (Blue Jersey)

With today’s vote in the state Senate, the New Jersey legislature defaulted on its constitutional obligation to provide same-sex couples in New Jersey equal protection, as unanimously mandated by the New Jersey Supreme Court in 2006. That’s why we at Garden State Equality are here with our partner Lambda Legal, which has an extraordinary track record of advancing LGBT civil rights in the courts.

Now our organizations will announce major news. Our side is going back to court to win marriage equality.

Several of the senators who voted against marriage equality have pledged to “fix” civil unions. Marriage supporters doubt that separate but equal can be fixed.

If one of the four justices is convinced that only marriage can remedy the inequality, then marriage may come to New Jersey.

Marriage Equality Sleeps With the Fishes In NJ

As Timothy reported, it’s over for now.

AP Misquotes Ugandan LGBT Advocate Saying Dropping Death Penalty Is Good Enough

The Associated Press story we pointed to this morning indicating that Uganda’s president is urging lawmakers to drop the death penalty provision from its otherwise still-draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill contains a horrible misquote by a Ugandan LGBT activist, one which completely obscures the fact that this proposed modification is almost negligible. The AP story suggests that all the Ugandan Parliament needs to do is drop the death penalty provision, and Uganda’s LGBT advocates will then fall in line and support the government.

This is a gross misrepresentation Let me explain. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill, as currently written, would:

• Expand the definitions for homosexual acts, making conviction easier. Current law requires evidence of penetration. The new law would expand the definition of homosexual activity to”touch(ing) another person with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.” Touching itself is defined as “touching—(a) with any part of the body; (b) with anything else; (c) through anything; and in particular includes touching amounting to penetration of any sexual organ. anus or mouth.”
• Affirm Uganda\’s lifetime imprisonment for those convicted of homosexuality.
• Define a new crime of “aggravated homosexuality” for those who engage in sex with someone under the age of 18, who are HIV-positive, who is a “repeat offender” (so broadly defined as to include anyone who has had a relationship with more than one person, or who had sex with the same person more than once), or who had sex with a disabled person (consensual or not). The penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” is death by hanging.
• Require anyone arrested on suspicion of homosexuality to undergo HIV testing to determine the individual\’s qualification for prosecution of “aggravated homosexuality.”
• Criminalize “attempted homosexuality” with imprisonment of seven years.
• Criminalize “promoting” homosexuality with fines and imprisonment of between five and seven years. This overly-broad provision would criminalize all speech and peaceful assembly for those who advocate on behalf of LGBT citizens in Uganda . It could also be used against anyone extending counseling or otherwise aiding gay people. It would also criminalize any attempt to repeal or modify the law in the future, as those moves could also be seen as “promoting” homosexuality.
• Criminalize the act of obtaining a same-sex marriage abroad with lifetime imprisonment.
• Add a clause which forces friends or family members to report LGBT persons to police within 24-hours of learning about that individual\’s homosexuality or face fines or imprisonment of up to three years.
• Penalize landlords and hotel owners with five to seven years imprisonment for renting to LGBT people.
• Add an extra-territorial and extradition provisions, allowing Uganda to prosecute LGBT Ugandans living abroad.
• Void all international treaties, agreements and human rights obligations which conflict with this bill.

As you can see, dropping the death penalty provision, while an important feature, is barely a concession given the scope of the bill. It’s debatable whether there’s much of a difference between the death penalty and spending a lifetime in Ugandan prisons. It still criminalizes knowing someone who is gay, it still criminalizes renting a room or flat to someone who is gay, it still criminalizes gay Ugandans living abroad, and it still criminalizes all acts of free speech or giving any sort of aide to gay people.

But the AP article implies that it is only the death penalty provision that Ugandan LGBT advocates object to:

Frank Mugisha, leader of Sex Minorities Uganda, said the gay-rights group will campaign for and support President Yoweri Museveni in the 2011 polls because of his opposition to the bill’s harsher provisions.

“If one scratches your back you also scratch his back,” Mugisha said. “Museveni’s action shows that he is a true democrat. As a head of state he is doing the right thing of protecting all interests of its citizens including those of the minorities.”

Frank Mugisha tells Warren Throckmorton that this is not at all what he said:

I called Frank Mugisha to ask if he was quoted correctly and he said no, he was not quoted correctly. He said he did not say, ‘if one scratches your back, you also scratch his back.\’ He also noted that Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUg) does not support specific political parties, saying

We are not political. As an organization, we don\’t support any party. Like all Ugandans, some of our members support one party, and others support another party.

Regarding President Museveni, Mugisha said he did not know what stance he had taken. His comment to the reporter was meant to be a hypothetical statement, saying

I said, ‘if the President protects gays, then he is being democratic.\’ We do not know yet what he is going to do.

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

New Jersey votes on marriage equality

Today the full New Jersey Senate voted on a bill to provide the same legal protections, responsibilities, and recognition to same-sex couples that it offers to opposite-sex couples. As expected, the full Senate voted against marriage equality 20 – 14. To pass, the bill needed 21 votes, seven more than it received.

(for the record, Sen. Teresa Ruiz nearly brought me to tears)

What this means in practical terms is that New Jersey will not have marriage equality for the four (or eight) years of Chris Christie’s governance. Or, I suppose, until two thirds of the senate is committed to marriage and can overturn a veto.

However, we finally have a tally of those who believe in equality under the law and those who believe that our lives, our relationships, and our citizenship are inferior to their own. I’ll bring you the roll call once I know it.

It is quite likely that support for the idea of marriage in New Jersey will continue to grow. At some point I think it likely that the no vote of some Senators today will cost them their career.

Let’s try and make that sooner rather than later.

Cato Institute’s Levy calls for marriage freedom

The Cato Institute is a pro-free market, libertarian think tank which seeks to “increase the understanding of public policies based on the principles of limited government, free markets, individual liberty, and peace.” Today the New York Daily News ran an opinion piece by Robert Levy, Cato’s chairman. He sees the unconstitutional restriction on gay couples to be the consequence of politicians inserting themselves into our lives and controlling what has historically been a private contract.

For most of Western history, marriage was a matter of private contract between the betrothed parties and perhaps their families. Following that tradition, marriage today should be a private arrangement, requiring minimal or no state intervention. Some religious or secular institutions would recognize gay marriages; others would not; still others would call them domestic partnerships or assign another label. Join whichever group you wish. The rights and responsibilities of partners would be governed by personally tailored contracts – consensual bargains like those that control most other interactions in a free society.
…
Yet our politicians, unwilling to privatize marriage, seem congenitally unable to extricate themselves from our most intimate relationships. One would hope, in the coming months and years, that more enlightened federal and state legislators will have the courage and decency to resist morally abhorrent and constitutionally suspect restrictions based on sexual orientation. Gay couples are entitled to the same legal rights and the same respect and dignity accorded to all Americans.

Oh how I wish that “libertarian minded” legislators would act in accordance with their claimed principles.

Museveni To Drop Death Penalty, WaPo Says Bill Is Still “Ugly and Ignorant”

There are reports out this morning that Uganda President Yoweri Museveni wants the death penalty provision removed from the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill which is now before Parliament. The Washington Post, in a strongly worded editorial this morning, says that this move is not worth celebrating.

As currently written, the bill would:

• Expand the definitions for homosexual acts, making conviction easier. Current law requires evidence of penetration. The new law would expand the definition of homosexual activity to”touch(ing) another person with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.” Touching itself is defined as “touching—(a) with any part of the body; (b) with anything else; (c) through anything; and in particular includes touching amounting to penetration of any sexual organ. anus or mouth.”
• Affirm Uganda\’s lifetime imprisonment for those convicted of homosexuality.
• Define a new crime of “aggravated homosexuality” for those who engage in sex with someone under the age of 18, who are HIV-positive, who is a “repeat offender” (so broadly defined as to include anyone who has had a relationship with more than one person, or who had sex with the same person more than once), or who had sex with a disabled person (consensual or not). The penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” is death by hanging.
• Require anyone arrested on suspicion of homosexuality to undergo HIV testing to determine the individual\’s qualification for prosecution of “aggravated homosexuality.”
• Criminalize “attempted homosexuality” with imprisonment of seven years.
• Criminalize “promoting” homosexuality with fines and imprisonment of between five and seven years. This overly-broad provision would criminalize all speech and peaceful assembly for those who advocate on behalf of LGBT citizens in Uganda . It could also be used against anyone extending counseling or otherwise aiding gay people. It would also criminalize any attempt to repeal or modify the law in the future, as those moves could also be seen as “promoting” homosexuality.
• Criminalize the act of obtaining a same-sex marriage abroad with lifetime imprisonment.
• Add a clause which forces friends or family members to report LGBT persons to police within 24-hours of learning about that individual\’s homosexuality or face fines or imprisonment of up to three years.
• Penalize landlords and hotel owners with five to seven years imprisonment for renting to LGBT people.
• Add an extra-territorial and extradition provisions, allowing Uganda to prosecute LGBT Ugandans living abroad.
• Void all international treaties, agreements and human rights obligations which conflict with this bill.

As you can see, dropping the death penalty clause barely scratches the surface of what the Washington Post calls an “ugly and ignorant piece of legislation.”

This retreat from the death sentence originally proposed should neither be celebrated nor considered a concession by the government in response to pressure from the United States and other nations. The proposal is barbaric. That it is even being considered puts Uganda beyond the pale of civilized nations.

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

Iowa legislature not to debate marriage in 2010

Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal has ruled out debating marriage equality in 2010. (Sioux City Journal)

“I think our attitude is, if it doesn’t help balance the budget, if it doesn’t help create jobs, it can wait until another year,” Gronstal said.

This delays any possibility of Iowa residents losing basic civil rights for another four years.

If he holds to it, Gronstal’s decision delays the cumbersome process of amending the constitution, which requires the approval of two consecutive General Assemblies before going to voters. If lawmakers don’t approve this year, the issue would have to be approved by lawmakers convening in 2011 and those convening in the assembly beginning in 2013.

The earliest the issue could reach voters would be the 2014 general election.

Congressmen file amicus in support of DC’s anti-gays

Two Senators and 37 members of the House (all Republicans) have filed an amicus brief in support of anti-gay activists who are suing to put marriage equality to a vote in the District of Columbia.

Their official reason is some mumble-jumble about serving “as members of the ultimate legislative authority for the District of Columbia and the very body which delegated to the District its limited legislative power under home rule”. But their basic beef comes down to, “When we said that DC residents could make their own decisions, we didn’t mean that they could make choices that we don’t like!!”

Relatedly, last night I saw GOP Party Chairman Michael Steele, arguing on Fox that Democrats are taking away the ability of people to live their lives the way they want… and using DC’s marriage law as example. I’m paraphrasing, but it seemed like he was arguing that DC residents were losing individual freedom because they were not free to vote on what their neighbors could do. Truly, it was an example of someone totally confused about the idea of personal liberty and individual freedom.

The good news is that these congressmen are only a small percentage of the Senate and the House and are even a minority in their own party (twenty years ago you’d have nearly all of the members of both parties). This is not to say that other Republicans would necessarily support marriage equality, but perhaps that they didn’t feel the need to identify themselves with the extremist right-wing caucus of Republicans who never lose an opportunity to attack the rights, freedom, and equality of gay people.

In a way, they did us a favor. We now have a nice list of the most extreme of the extreme. And while I didn’t see any surprises on the list (perhaps our readers might), it’s nice to have a compilation of equality’s biggest opponents all in one place.

Senators:

James Inhofe (Okla.)
Roger Wicker (Miss.)

Representatives:

Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio)
Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.)
Robert Aderholt (Ala.)
Todd Akin (Mo.)
Michele Bachmann (Minn.)
J. Gresham Barrett (S.C.)
Roscoe Bartlett (Md.)
Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.)
John Boozman (Ark.)
Jason Chaffetz (Utah)
John Fleming (La.)
J. Randy Forbes (Va.)
Virginia Foxx (N.C.)
Scott Garrett (N.J.)
Phil Gingrey (Ga.)
Louie Gohmert (Tex.)
Jeb Hensarling (Tex.)
Wally Herger (Calif.)
Walter Jones (N.C.)
Jim Jordan (Ohio)
Steve King (Iowa)
Jack Kingston (Ga.)
John Kline (Minn.)
Doug Lamborn (Colo.)
Robert Latta (Ohio)
Don Manzullo (Ill.)
Michael McCaul (Tex.)
Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.)
Patrick McHenry (N.C.)
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.)
Jeff Miller (Fla.)
Jerry Moran (Kan.)
Randy Neugebauer (Tex.)
Mike Pence (Ind.)
Joe Pitts (Pa.)
Mark Souder (Ind.)
Todd Tiahrt (Kan.)

Feel free to walk precincts, call volunteers, work get-out-the-vote, or contribute to the campaigns of their primary and general opponents as much as possible.

Some shady fellas at the Shady Lady

We told you last month about the Shady Lady Ranch in Beatty, NV. It’s a purveyor of the world’s oldest trade that is seeking to expand business by employing a few good men. Now proprietress Bobbi Davis is going to get her chance.

“I personally feel, as do the many other women who have made contact with me since I started this, that this is a service whose time has come,” Davis said in a letter to Nye County officials.

A county board’s vote Tuesday affirming that Davis could offer “shady men” to her clientele followed months of rancorous debate among the state’s legal brothel community. The industry, in its own peculiar way, is somewhat conservative: Considered an anachronism of bawdy mining camps by some Nevada newcomers, it often balks at change.

None of the locals showed up to object. Perhaps they figured that any employment in this economy was bound to benefit the town.

But that doesn’t mean that no one objected. The complaint came from the man employed to protect the industry.

George Flint, longtime lobbyist for the Nevada Brothel Assn., has said that allowing male prostitutes could be the industry’s Pearl Harbor. He has hinted that brothels possibly offering gay sex — a choice each prostitute, as an independent contractor, would be free to make — might sour some legislators on the entire brothel system.

“This is the first time in the history of the world . . . that men have been licensed to sell sex,” Flint said Tuesday, his voice rising. “It’s never been done!”

Oh, I very much doubt that. And he needn’t worry so much about GAY SEX (eeeeek), as most of her business will probably come from women or couples.

Now that the licenses and approvals are in order, Bobbi is ready to select from the 100 or so applicants. If you rush, you can get your application in before she makes the cut.