Ohio Coalition Fails To Force Statewide Vote
Despite spending $1.5 million dollars in an effort to collect enough signatures to force a statewide vote to repeal punitive new strip club restrictions, an Ohio coalition of adult entertainment businesses has failed.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said that the coalition known as the Vote No On Issue 1 Committee was not able to gather enough signatures from at least 44 of the 88 counties in Ohio necessary to get the initiative to repeal new strip club restrictions on the November ballot.
The new restrictions impose heavy penalties on the most innocuous touching and require adult entertainment businesses to close at midnight—which is when many of them start getting busy. These restrictions serve no public safety purpose; they are nothing more than a way to circumvent existing court rulings and punish adult entertainment by making it more difficult to do business.
The only thing that will stop this law from taking effect now is a judge issuing a temporary order while the coalition makes its appeals in the court system.
This is only the beginning. This victory for the bible thumpers will only embolden them to pressure spineless lawmakers into even tighter restrictions or an all-out ban on any nudity whatsoever, which is their true goal. Succeeding at forcing clubs to close at midnight isn’t going to satisfy these peoples’ cravings for power. They are hellbent on robbing citizens of their freedoms by imposing their morality on them via the legislative process and very few lawmakers on either the Democratic or Republican side are stepping up to preserve the freedoms of citizens.
It’s a shame that America is moving backwards because of a small, vocal group of messed up people.
Perhaps the people at Citizens for Community Values, the group that pushed for these new restrictions, should focus their attention on pedophile priests and child abusers in the church instead of on the recreational activities of consenting adults.