To the editor:

Kai Ma’s article on the prostitution debate was interesting, but has massive gaps in its research. I’ve dedicated most of my life to this issue for over 13 months, often feeling frozen in time. But having
been a massage therapist since I was 19 years old, in 1989, it’s a small price to pay. I wonder where this all leads? Kudos to your publication and to the article’s author, Kai Ma, for writing about prostitution.

I might add, I didn’t even know this until last night, that while San Francisco’s tweaking of it’s massage laws in order to legalize prostitution has been totally shunned by so many, the opposition to Mayor Gavin Newsom quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle in terms of gay marriage is the Traditional Values Coalition. “No protesters attended the event, but, when contacted by the Chronicle, Benjamin Lopez, a lobbyist for the conservative group Traditional Values Coalition, slammed it from afar,” says article author Rona Marech.

The Traditional Values Coalition published a paper on San Francisco’s massage laws legalizing prositution in July 2004. Most media, such as the San Francisco Chronicle have pretended this wasn’t an issue for over thirteen months now, despite having had email exchanges with both Andy Ross and Henry Lee of the Chronicle about it.

Offhand, it’s gossip I wouldn’t put up on my website, but you have to wonder if this is one of the issues relating to Newsom’s recent divorce. Newsom is a Roman Catholic. When Executive Director of Treasure Island Tony Hall did an interview with San Francisco Catholic newspaper in October, Newsom announced his divorce within eight weeks. This is a real newspaper, sometimes read in the California State Capitol and quoted by other newspapers, such as the Sacramento Bee.

Kai Ma’s article fails to mention that San Francisco legalized indoor prostitution and pimping in massage parlors, creating multiple loopholes for sex traffickers in 2003 and 2004.

Meanwhile, last week, Oakland passed an ordinance calling for a moratorium on massage parlors.

Robyn Few, Carol Leigh, Ron Weitzer, and Janice Raymond all know about San Francisco’s massage law. Leigh was on the San Francisco Task Force on Prostitution, which published it’s recommendations to legalize prostitution by using massage parlors as fronts, on City stationary, under the leadership of then-Supervisor Terence Hallinan in 1996.

The article fails to mention that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi gave $750 to Hallinan on July 17, 2004, while Hallinan was fundraising for Proposition Q. So while Pelosi did not give directly to the Proposition Q campaign, and instead funneled through Hallinan, I think it’s obvious she adores Hallinan and everything for which he stands.

The article also fails to mention that former California State Senate President John Burton also supported Proposition Q when he was in office.

Newsom, Daly, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, D-California, Woolsey, and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-California, have all refused to honestly comment on San Francisco’s massage law, or any related issues.

All this is even more complicated when one observes that Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Gloria Molina has posted in her biography that she opposes the use of massage clinics as fronts for prostitution.

—Brian Goodwin
San Rafael, California
(Home of Boxer and also home to at least seven brothels posing as massage therapy clinics)
www.massagewell.com

In The Fray Contributor