The Law Center quickly found there is no shortage of opportunities to further this great cause. It was our Law Center that drafted the Resolution declaring pornography to be a “public health crisis,” which passed the Utah legislature, and was signed by Governor Gary Herbert. This same resolution is now under consideration in a variety of other states as well as by the parliaments of Canada and Israel, and it is getting great press for our cause.
Our Law Center was asked to write a key legal brief for the Georgia Supreme Court in a case where a child predator was claiming he had a constitutional right to find children online and talk to them about sex in an arousing and exploitive manner. This line of argument was accepted in another supreme court in a different state so we knew we had to be involved in the Georgia case. In the end, our legal brief helped to convince the Georgia Supreme Court to rule against the child predator.
Our legal team recently filed an amicus brief in a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals case challenging California’s anti-prostitution law. The groups challenging that law are arguing that all sexual activity, no matter what, is a protected right under our U. S. Constitution. It is obvious where this would end up if they win. All laws against prostitution and of course pornography would be threatened and we would almost certainly see an increase in sex trafficking and child sexual abuse as a result.
Our legal team is also finishing a significant project to update an immensely helpful and highly demanded legal manual that teaches local and state officials how to ward off sexually oriented businesses with regulations, zoning, and more. It will be particularly useful to communities that want to stop the spread of illicit massage parlors that are actually brothels. The NCOSE Law Center is one of a kind, so our lawyers are contacted regularly with new requests – many of which we have to turn down. It is our hope that we can grow the Law Center so that it can take on more of these cases.
I hope you see that the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) is unique and that we are the only organization doing what we do. We are leading a movement to end sexual exploitation through education and advocacy, and the law.
