So Wrong, but So Flori-duh

Kylene Nelson, a 42 year old teacher at a Pasco County…. wait for it…. Flori-duh came to class drunk, pulled down her pants while trying to force the students to dance with her, ran out of the school to a nearby community center and then passed out by a pool. When she finally got tested, she had a blood alcohol content of 0.26. If you don’t know, that’s a hell of a score. (source)

She got caught because the students whipped out their camera phones and took video of the incident. However, it is reported that the principal ordered the students to all delete the footage from their phones. (source and video). Of course, the principal had no right to do that. The students had a First Amendment right to photograph what was happening, and at least one kept his footage and gave it to the local news station.

Sadly, when you’ve got a drunk, gyrating, panty-less, Flori-duh teacher story… the First Amendment issues seem to get lost in the shuffle.

Hat Tip to Dan Steinberg.

Yes, you should have hired a trademark attorney…

I'll settle for.... One. Hundred. Gazillion. Dollars.

By Fischer and Randazza

Another day, another cautionary tale about how staying at a Holiday Inn Express doesn’t qualify you to practice law.

Enter Jamil Ezzo, an enterprising Internet maven, who runs the website at www.LocatePlasticSurgeon.com. Mr. Ezzo decided that he should file for a federal trademark registration on his incredibly creative and original business name, “Locate Plastic Surgeon,” and in an effort to give his fledgling new business venture a leg up over the wasteful spenders that were his cutthroat competition, he figured that he should forego hiring a lawyer to do it for him. Great plan, Jamil, except that any IP attorney who’s worth his salt would have told you that your proposed mark is pretty much worthless and you shouldn’t waste your time or money trying to protect it.

Well, who needs an expensive, fancy lawyer to tell you, when the examining attorney at the United States Patent and Trademark Office will do it for the price of filing? Except that it helps to know what you are reading when the office action comes back:

Judging from the applicant’s specimen of use, the services appear to be in the nature of offering a website that allows users to identify the location of – i.e., locate – surgeons specializing in plastic surgery. Thus, the mark is merely descriptive as applied to the services because it describes a function of the applicant’s website.

Translation: Your mark is lame, and it will be really difficult to justify giving you the right to exclude everyone in your field from using the same words in association with their business.

[A]lthough the trademark examining attorney has refused registration on the Principal Register, applicant may respond to the stated refusal(s) under Section 2(e)(1) of the Trademark Act by amending the application to seek registration on the Supplemental Register.

Translation: We’ll take your money to put your mark in the cheap seats, but you’re gonna have to prove that the relevant marketplace identifies your service with the proposed mark before you can hope to win a claim in federal court.

Mr. Ezzo took the “advice” of his “attorney” and registered his ultra-awesome mark on the “Supplemental Register” – whatever that is. Now he thinks he can stop anyone from using the phrase “Locate Plastic Surgeon” on the internet, and he has filed a complaint in the Middle District of Florida seeking to do just that. His targets: Google, AOL, PlasticSurgery.org (website for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons), PlasticSurgery.com, FindYourPlasticSurgeon.com, and FindCosmeticSurgeons.com – to name a few.

Keeping with his normal business practice, Mr. Ezzo has decided that he can handle this bit of litigation on his own. He drafted the complaint himself, if you couldn’t tell. The first eleven pages comprise large, copied-and-pasted portions of the United States Code – much of which have nothing to do with Ezzo’s “alleged” cause of action. His “claims” include fraud (with no indication of the supporting facts), misrepresentation (without any mention of what was represented to him), rescission (wait, that’s not a cause of action… it’s a remedy), and injunction (ditto). What does he want? Only $90M, representing the lost subscription fees from 5,000 subscribers who would have found Mr. Ezzo’s site, but for the alleged fraud, misrepresentation, rescission, and injunction of the defendants. Of course, that number has been tripled, because this is absolutely an “exceptional case.”

The only thing “exceptional” about this case is how exceptionally foolish it was to file. Normally, in trademark cases, the parties bear their own fees. However, in “exceptional cases,” the prevailing party may also get an award of attorneys’ fees. If I’m the oddsmaker on this case, even one of my law students could likely get this thing dismissed and get the defendants an attorneys’ fees award against Mr. Ezzo. I’d imagine that Google and AOL are going to have no difficulty bringing a complete and total smackdown.

Sadly, one consult with a qualified trademark attorney (which might have been free, if he found the right one) could have saved Mr. Ezzo lots of time, energy, money, aggravation, and humiliation. He would have learned that his registration was not worth pursuing, at the least. At best, he would have avoided filing this laughable lawsuit – which will probably end with him on the hook for some attorneys’ fees.

Elder and Disabled Porn Targeted By Massachusetts Lawmaker – Proposal Goes Too Far

Banned in Boston (and all of Massachusetts) if Kathi-Anne Reinstein gets her way.

Massachusetts State Rep, Kathi-Anne Reinstein (D) is targeting adult entertainment involving models over the age of 60 as well as private sexual communications between the elderly (if you can call 60 “elderly” anymore) and private sexual communications among the disabled. See State Puts Porn Pervs in Sights, Boston Herald. The measure misses the mark and as it is an affront to the dignity of the elderly and the disabled alike with a heaping helping of unconstitutionality to round out the bad legislation buffet.

The proposed legislation reads:

Whoever, either with knowledge that a person is a child under eighteen years of age, an elder or a person with a disability, or while in possession of such facts that he should have reason to know that such person is a child under eighteen years of age, an elder or a person with a disability and with lascivious intent, hires, coerces, solicits or entices, employs, procures, uses, causes, encourages, or knowingly permits such child, elder or person with a disability to pose or be exhibited in a state of nudity, for the purpose of representation or reproduction in any visual material, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for a term of not less than ten nor more than twenty years, or by a fine of not less than ten thousand nor more than fifty thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Mass law defines an “elder” as anyone over the age of 60 (that includes Sylvester Stallone) and a “person with a disability as “a person with a permanent or long-term physical or mental impairment that prevents or restricts the individual’s ability to provide for his or her own care or protection.”

There are nightmare scenarios where people, due to mental infirmity, might not be able to give truly informed consent — and in those cases, I too would support measures to punish those who might exploit them. Illinois, for example, reportedly prohibits porn production involving the “severely mentally retarded.” Set aside the fact that we don’t call the mentally disabled “retarded” anymore, and such a law makes perfect sense. I am sure that, more likely than not, someone in such condition would lack the mental capacity to give their consent – and thus we should be jealously protective of their dignity and personal autonomy. C.f. New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982) (holding that child pornography depicting actual children is not protected speech).

But, Reinstein’s law goes way too far.

Believe it or not, there is a market for “elder porn,” as well as “disability porn,” and those markets are served by consenting, healthy, elderly and disabled models. Naturally, some of this market caters to fetishists, but before you start saying “ewwww,” consider that there also happen to be many healthy members of society who don’t believe that sexual desirability ends at 60, nor at any other age, and it’s not just big in Japan. Just as “elderly,” is not necessarily inconsistent with “sexy,” (Sofia Loren and Sylvester Stallone are both over 60) neither is “physically disabled” necessarily inconsistent with “sexiness.” Just ask this wheelchair-bound porn actress.

One of the most utopian things about the internet is that anyone, and I mean anyone, can (no matter what they look like) find a porn site that features models that look just like them. Madison Avenue is gives 17 year old girls deep seated anxiety about their weight to the point that they kill themselves with anorexia and bulimia, because they don’t look like airbrushed and photoshopped lingerie models. On the other hand, any woman who thinks that nobody would find her attractive could get over that with 10 minutes of porn surfing. Sure, you can find airbrushed and surgery-enhanced models in porn, but the “natural” look is just as prevalent these days. If there is one thing I’ve learned for from representing adult entertainment clients it is that nobody should ever feel unattractive, because there isn’t just someone for everybody out there. Oh no, its much better than that — no matter what you look like, you are so central to the desires of a large enough group of people that you, (again, no matter what you look like) can easily make $200,000 a year selling nude photos of yourself on the internet. All you need is a thimbleful of business savvy and the right adult entertainment lawyer.

Yes, the state of internet porn is proof that we really are all beautiful. Sniff.

But don’t tell that to Rep. Reinstein. Her constitutionally-sloppy legislation doesn’t simply target exploitation of the vulnerable. It targets my parents who are, by any measure, still pretty damn good looking — even if they are both over 60. Dare I say that my mother is still knockout gorgeous, and strangers still oogle her. I’m proud to say that she and my dad certainly still do it. But you know what? My mom does have a bit of a disability (as defined by Massachusetts law). She has a lung condition that is a “long-term physical … impairment that prevents or restricts the [her] ability to provide for … her own care or protection.” Uh oh.

I’m not lamenting the fact that this legislation might prevent my mom and dad from becoming the next internet porn sensation. I do think that I would need to gouge my eyes out with a fork if that ever happened.

But, Reinstein’s law is not limited to commercial porn. In fact, it doesn’t have to be porn at all – since I’d venture to guess that the elderly women who posed nude for this calendar don’t consider it to be “pornographic” or “perverted.”

The worst part is that Rep. Reinstein’s law equates nude photos of the elderly or disabled with child pornography: You can’t make it for any reason whatsoever, not even for private enjoyment, no exceptions, no nothing. Under this law, If my mom and dad want to set up the ol’ video camera in their bedroom and make some in-home entertainment, they would be looking at 10 to 20 years in prison. Scroll back up and read the text of the law — there is no exception for personal use, no exception for someone who is clearly mentally capable of making a decision for themselves, no an exception for someone who truly wants to appear in a state of undress for a lascivious purpose.

Over 60? Check. Need help taking care of yourself? Check. Dumb law? Check.

Lets not go getting silly by thinking that we can simply trust Massachusetts’ finest to enforce the law with a degree of common sense. The child porn laws, nationwide, are being used in a manner for which they were never intended by placing kids on the registered sex offender lists for “sexting” photos to each other. In Massachusetts, consenting adults have been arrested for spanking one another — with the police interpreting that as criminal battery. Genarlow Wilson, a 17 year old male got a blowjob from a 15 year old classmate at a party, and not only was he arrested, but a peckerwood prosecutor from Georgia fought tooth and nail to try and make sure that he served every day of his ten year sentence for “child molestation.”

When it comes to dumb sex laws, the last person I’m going to trust to apply it intelligently is a law enforcement officer or a prosecutor. Not even in my beloved Commonwealth. Even noble and intelligent legislation becomes an unpredictable monster in the hands of fools who refuse to think while enforcing it. When a law is an obvious Constitutional quagmire as soon as the legislator’s pen hits the paper, it doesn’t take a clairvoyant to see that it will produce nightmarish results.

I’m certain that Rep. Reinstein meant well. I’m also sure that it never occurred to her that there just might be a healthy reason for the elderly and the disabled to appear in racy photographs. To be fair to her, I’m sure that she isn’t regularly exposed to the panoply of sexual expression that runs across my desk every day. Nevertheless, her legislation must be smothered, lest it be added to the patchwork of nonsensical laws that, taken alone might not mean much, but taken together they act as black coal dust in the atmosphere of freedom.

The “elderly” and the disabled have a right to express their personal sexuality, and those who may want to view such materials have a right to receive them. The purported legislative intent of this law, protecting the vulnerable, could easily be accomplished by using the existing laws. Or, if Rep. Reinstein insists on sponsoring a new bill, it could be drafted far more narrowly and intelligently, and without trampling anyone’s personal liberties.

H/T: Volokh

Google Images

If you’re going to lift images from Google, its a good idea to look at them before putting them on TV, eh? H/T.

Whoopsie!

Censorship in the Name of Political Correctness — Gamers Prepare to Face a New Enemy

Editorial and Comment by Zac “AGhostInTheSnow” Papantoniou

“Just when the decency police and moral values group have been all but defeated in the courts–both of law and public opinion–a new threat has emerged from our left flank: political correctness . . . The leftist thought police are now wanting to impose their view of propriety on modern cultural discourse.” – Lawrence Walters

If you love video games as much as I do, you should ingrain the name Lawrence Walters into your brain.

Walters, who has been described by some as “the Anti-Jack Thompson,” is a distinguished First-Amendment attorney and Managing Partner at the law firm of, “Weston, Garrou, Walters and Mooney”; he recently spoke at the “2009 Game Developers Conference” in a session titled, “Silencing the Censors.” (Disclaimer, Walters is Randazza’s law partner).

During the session, Walters forewarned game developers of a looming threat to the video-game industry, censorship in the name of “political correctness.” Walters cited pending legislation, in the state of New York, that aims to prohibit sales of games to minors, that have various degrees of profanity, racist stereotypes, derogatory language, and/or actions toward a specific group of persons.

The law would require New York retailers to apply warning labels to any game that contained such subject matter and would require retailers to keep all such games in a “sealed and locked container” inaccessible to customers. Non-compliant retailers – or “non-custodial” adults who purchase regulated games for minors – would be subject to a fine of up to $1,000.

I have some major points of contention with legislation such as this. First, the video-game industry voluntarily set up a self-regulating body (the ESRB), over 15 years ago, to independently rate and label the content of every game sold in North America. Attempting to enact such legislation is a waste of precious tax-payer dollars; dollars, that could be better spent on a multitude of various state needs, such as . . . oh, I don’t know, maybe . . . education?! Second, legislation based on political correctness, which would impose a $1,000 fine on an offender is both excessive and (should be) a shock to one’s conscience; especially considering the way such legislation binds the hands of parents when it comes to child-rearing. Last, but certainly not least, such legislation is an affront to one’s rational ability to use common sense, not to mention, the basic freedoms afforded by the First Amendment of the Constitution! As Walters pointed out in his session:

“Think about that for a minute. Would we ever in a million years tolerate the government passing a law that movies cannot have profanity, racial jokes, or derogatory language? That would eliminate practically every movie made,” he said.

“Now we can debate all day long whether racist stereotypes or derogatory language is even appropriate in video games, but that’s for us to debate, and not for the government to decide.”

This type of “thought policing,” as of late, has generally come from those leaning to the right of the political spectrum; but Walters warns that with the new change in the political landscape, it is ever increasingly coming from those on the left as well. We’ve seen this before, I mean, who grew up in the 80’s and doesn’t remember Tipper Gore’s “War on the Music Industry?”

This type of thinking will do us in people! Parents must be free to make decisions as to their children’s best interests; video-game developers must be free to create products and retailers must be free to sell those products as they see fit, without having to worry that they’ll be fined a grand if a minor gets their hands on a video game with mature content in it. You and I, must be free to express thoughts, ideas, expressions and creations, without having to constantly look over our shoulders, wondering if we’ll be the target of a politician’s next attempt to stifle something they find “controversial.” Because it starts here, with you and I; and if we don’t speak up for ourselves, we’ll have to then wonder, will there be anyone left to speak up for us, once the thought police come to stifle our fundamental freedoms?

I’ll leave you with something Ben Franklin once said:

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

HT to First Amendment Bad-Ass, Lawrence G. Walters, for speaking up, and fighting for our right to play any fucking video game we choose . . . Read more: Here and Here.

Sexting Pushback

It is good to see that someone is pushing back against the paranoia-du-jour, sexting, and overzealous prosecutors who have coupled with hysterical values groups to turn it into today’s “red scare.”

Law FTW!

Apologies for being a bit behind on video-game related matters, but law school has chomped up my time and soul. My transformation to blue-book ninja is nearly complete.

9th Circuit Court of Appeals Strikes Down Video Game Law

In February the 9th Circuit struck down a California law requiring that violent video games display warnings about their content. In Video Software Dealers Association v. Schwarzenegger, Judge Callahan (the dancing judge!), writing for a three-judge panel including avid video-gamer Alex Kozinski, held that the California’s statute violates the First Amendment as a content-based restriction on speech that failed to meet strict scrutiny. In a fairly straight-forward opinion, the court declines to apply the “variable obscenity” standard of Ginsburg v. New York to violent video games holding that the Ginsburg standard only applies to sexual obscenity targeted at minors.

Utah Governor Saves the Day

Utah’s Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) recently struck down HB 353 that sought to impose penalties for retailers who sell M-rated video games to minors. Using a hokey “truth in advertising” angle as an end around the First Amendment, the Jack Thompson inspired legislation operated on the premise that video game retailers were holding themselves out as not selling violent video games to minors. Accordingly, if they sold M-rated video games to minors, in essence they would be committing consumer fraud. Gov. Huntsman, correctly sniffing out the Dormant Commerce Clause and First Amendment issues, slapped the legislation around like a red-headed stepchild.

At least someone in the great state of Mormon Utah came to their senses.

Many hat tips to Dennis McCauley over at GamePolitics for his excellent coverage.

Self PWNAGE

Brian Round, 17, of Eustis, Flori-duh decided to have some fun pulling over motorists with a fake police light and siren. When he got busted, he denied the charges. Apparently, Round doesn’t watch a lot of TV, because officers left the room with a video tape rolling. Round decided to make a couple of cell phone calls while in the police station.

He made several calls and a Eustis police officer heard him say he “pulled over a girl and was messing with people using his blue, red, and green lights.”

The officer also heard Round say that “they couldn’t prove anything because none of my friends would rat me out,” and that he wasn’t trying to impersonate a police officer, “it was just fun and games.” (source)

Protesting Censorship Down Under

by Jason Fischer (follow me on )

Hackers hijacked Australia’s official online censorship board website to protest that agencies practices of filtering web content that hasn’t been ruled to be obscene. (source)

In case you can’t read the tiny text pictured above, here’s the message:

This site contains information about the boards that have the right to CONTROL YOUR FREEDOMZ. The Classification Board has the right to not just classify content (the name is an ELABORATE TRICK), but also the right to DECIDE WHAT IS AND ISNT APPROPRIATE and BAN CONTENT FROM THE PUBLIC. We are part of an ELABORATE DECEPTION from CHINA to CONTROL AND SHEEPIFY the NATION, to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. All opposers must HATE CHILDREN, and therefore must be KILLED WITH A LARGE MELONS during the PROSECUTION PARTIES IN SEPTEMBER. Come join our ALIEN SPACE PARTY.

The First Amendment Is Often Inconvenient… But That Is Besides the Point

Editorial and Comment by Zac “AGhostInTheSnow” Papantoniou

Ok, so we’re a little late on this one, but over the course of the last two weeks, Rogier van Bakel at the blog “Nobody’s Business” posted, commented on, and eventually “debated,” law professor Kristen Juras on the subtleties of the First Amendment.

Professor Juras is an assistant law professor at the University of Montana. Professor Juras has been in the news recently because she has a fundamental problem with the content of a weekly sex column featured in the “Opinion” section the University’s newspaper, the “Montana Kaimin,” and is written by a University of Montana senior, Bess Davis.

Professor Juras has publicly stated that the column is “embarrassingly unprofessional,” and that the subject of sex is “inappropriate for college students.” The professor also stated that the sex column not only, “. . . reflects poorly on the university’s School of Journalism and UM itself,” but also, “. . . affects my [Juras’s] reputation as a member of the faculty.” The Professor, after having her complaints in letters to the paper’s editor go nowhere, has now threatened to take the issue to the state legislature unless the newspaper establishes written policies for hiring columnists and reviewing content that could be deemed “controversial.”

While I certainly can’t agree with the Professor’s views and struggle to find the logic of her arguments, Professor Juras is nonetheless a member of the University’s community, and as such, she is free to express her view that the sex column takes up space that can be better used for other things. However, when Professor Juras was contacted by Rogier van Bakel, to respond to van Bakel’s initial post on Juras’s public threats to take her complaints to the Montana state legislature, not once does she suggest what a better use of such column space might be.

It’s perfectly reasonable for Professor Juras to have and express her opinion, but the Professor would be wise to educate herself with something Benjamin Franklin once wrote – “Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as publick [sic] liberty, without Freedom of Speech.”

If Kristen Juras were not a law professor, I would still vehemently disagree with her view on this issue. However, Ms. Juras is a law professor; and that makes me find her arguments and threats to seek legislative action, for suppressing the free dissemination of ideas and subjects with which she personally finds “inappropriate for college students” completely repugnant.

Simply saying that you support the First Amendment just doesn’t cut it; as a law professor, you more than most, should know and understand the dangers of institutional/governmental oversight on the press and while I must disagree with Rogier that your actions amount to “professional misconduct” – they are, to me, professionally reckless. As the wise Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy once said, “The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.”

HT to Rogier van Bakel at the blog “Nobody’s Business.” Read more of his initial post here and his second post, including Professor Juras’s response, here.

Sweet Caroline: Indiana ain’t got NOTHIN!

Sweeeeet Ca-ro-line,
Oh Oh Oh
Screw-win' the dog
and watch-chin' porn...
Child Porn! Child Porn!

Last Friday, I wrote about Indiana resident, Michelle Owen, who tried to get her ex boyfriend arrested for downloading child porn onto her computer. However, when the cops searched her hard drive, all they found was a video of her engaged in bestiality with her dog.

I concluded that story with this line:

The best part? This did NOT happen in Florida!

Oh, but Flori-duh will not be defeated. The force is strong in America’s Wang! (And by “force” I do mean imbecility and white-trash horror). We will not be outdone by puny Indiana! Never!

The hero of our story is Caroline Willette of Sarasota, Flori-duh.

Deputies say Caroline Willette videotaped herself having sex with two dogs and watching child pornography with a friend.

The 53-year-old gave a CD with the images to an acquaintance, who turned it over to police. Willette is in Sarasota County Jail and is charged with three counts of possessing child porn.

Willette admitted to detectives that she had sex with the animals in her home and watched young girls perform sex acts on the Internet. (source)

In your FACE, Indiana!

Christianity Fail

I'm not prayin' with YOU PEOPLE!

Just when you think that Sarah Palin has reached the mountaintop of fuckheadedness, she pulls of a coup and raises the bar. At a GOP dinner in Alaska last week, she told the audience that she wanted someone to pray with, but ewww, not old man McCain’s people!

“So I’m looking around for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra,” she said of the moments before the debate. “And the McCain campaign, love ‘em, you know, they’re a lot of people around me, but nobody I could find that I wanted to hold hands with and pray.”

As the audience laughed, Palin noted that she meant no disrespect to the McCain campaign and that ended up saying a prayer with her daughter Piper. (source)

H/T to Blue Ollie.

Pole Dancing is Art, Tax Exempt

Quagmire enjoys one of the many fruits of the Revolution.

A New York administrative law judge ruled that N.Y. sales tax does not apply to cover charges at an Albany strip club First Amendment protected erotic expression venue known as “Nite Moves.”

The cover charges are taxed under New York State Tax Law §1105(f)(1), unless the performances taking place at the adult entertainment establishment qualify as “musical arts performances.”

To support its theory that these performances qualified for the tax exemption, Nite Moves introduced the expert testimony of Dr. Judith Hanna. Dr. Hanna probably knows more about exotic dance than any other person on Earth — even more than Glenn Quagmire.

Dr. Hanna earned a master’s degree in anthropology from Columbia University in 1975 and a doctoral degree in anthropology from Columbia University in 1976, specializing in nonverbal communication and the arts and society. Her doctoral dissertation was on a group’s choreography and its meaning and style. She is a senior research scholar in the Department of Dance and an affiliate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland. Dr. Hanna has training in a multitude of dance genres, has taught dance as well as courses on dance theory at the college level, and has continually conducted teacher and youth dance workshops. She has served as a dance consultant and critic, and has written 6 books on dance, published more than 150 articles in dance periodicals, and done many reviews and commentaries on dance. Since 1995, Dr. Hanna has been conducting on-site research on exotic dance and adult entertainment. Along with the research approach she has taken with other forms of dance, she has examined the characteristics and choreography of exotic dance. Dr. Hanna has been retained on 43 occasions as an expert in court matters relating specifically to exotic dance and was accepted as an expert in this field for this matter. (Source)

Nite Moves produced dance videos along with Hanna’s testimony that showed that pole dancing routines are not merely random grinds and slides. The judge was obviously impressed:

The videos depicted dance routines that incorporated acrobatic pole maneuvers, splits, and other patterned repetitions. The pole maneuvers in particular are no small feat to accomplish, and attempting such a performance without the skill and a planned routine of steps could prove dangerous. (Source)

Dr. Hanna testified that erotic dance is, indeed, expressive conduct. She described the “symbolism, fantasy experience and other characteristics of exotic dance” as entertainment as a combination of erotic expression and professional training. She described the particular routines as follows:

somewhat ‘risque’ or ‘naughty’ adult play, a fanciful teasing that transgresses social decorum and dress codes in an ambiance ranging from sedate to carnival-like. Exotic dance is erotic fantasy and communication with a display of nudity, disclosure of more skin and different movements than are seen in public, the use of high heels. . . and incorporation of jazz-like, improvisatory movements in routines.(Source)

However, the best part comes from the judge herself as she refuses to be an agent in the culture wars:

The fact someone may believe that this entertainment is not appropriate for any audience is not the issue. The fact that the dancers remove all or part of their costume during the performances, that the dance routines are seductive in nature and titillation of a patron is the outcome, simply does not render such dance routines as something less than choreographed performances, or remove them from the exception to the general rule of Tax Law § 1105(f)(1). Accordingly, petitioner has met its burden of proof pursuant to Tax Law § 1132 on this issue and the admission charges it collects from its patrons at the door and for the private dances meet the exception to taxation under Tax Law § 1105(f)(1), and are therefore not taxable under this section. (source)

Nite Moves was represented by Andrew McCullough, one of my First Amendment Lawyers’ Association brothers. Congratulations Andy!

Giggity.

Another New England State Moves Closer to Legalizing Gay Marriage

Marriage between a man and a woman is perfect and holy.

The New Hampshire House passed a bill authorizing gay marriage in the Live Free or Die State. (source) Naturally, the mythology crowd is apoplectic.

Rep. Laura Gandia of Litchfield called it “the most radical redefinition of marriage that can be imposed.”

Really? Two people who love each other and want to commit to a lifetime with each other is a “radical redefinition?”

Rep. Nancy Elliott of Merrimack said marriage was instituted by God and that “marriage between a man and a woman is perfect and holy.”

I’ll be sure and let Ike and Tina know that.

In a statement after the vote, state GOP chairman John H. Sununu called the vote “another attempt by the liberal Democrats in the Legislature to impose their San Francisco agenda on the State of New Hampshire.”

John Sununu is such a douche. I guess that if I had to choose between a “San Francisco agenda,” and Sununu’s “Mississippi Agenda,” I’ll go with the part of the United States that looks like a First World Country.

Was the Apology Really Necessary?

.