Daily Read: More to Say on the First Amendment and Sex Worker Rights

Over at the Best Practices Policy Project, "dedicated to supporting organizations and advocates working with sex workers, people in the sex trade," two City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law students, Kat Thomas and Lauren Parnes, provide their perspectives on Monday's Supreme Court oral argument United States Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc. which we discussed here.

Because they were in the courtroom, they were able to add the fact that several of the Justices - - - including Chief Justice Roberts - - - nodded in agreement with this point made by David Bowker, Counsel for Alliance for Open Society:

on the government’s theory, the government can give you — can give anyone in the country a dollar in Medicare funds and say, okay,  now that you’ve taken a dollar of our money, we want you to profess your agreement with the Affordable Care Act, and we want you to never say anything inconsistent with that in your private speech. That is — that is wildly inconsistent with the First Amendment. That’s exactly what’s happening here. The only difference is the subject of prostitution. That’s what makes it less palatable.

The palatableness of the subject matter for the Justices and counsel alike is further explored by Thomas and Parnes.  Worth a read.

RR