High Court Ruling Upholds City's Rights in Regulating Adult Business
by Allie Martin
June 10, 2004
(AgapePress) - An attorney with the American Family Association Law Center is hailing a recent Supreme Court decision that allows municipalities to impose reasonable restrictions on the operation of sexually-oriented business or "S.O.B.'s" In the case of the City of Littleton, Colorado v. Z.J. Gifts, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that adult businesses are not entitled to special rules of appeal guaranteeing them an unusually speedy decision when they are denied a zoning permit. The decision of the high court was unanimous.
Steve Crampton is with the AFA Center for Law and Policy, the legal arm of the American Family Association, which specializes in constitutional litigation and offers advice and assistance to municipalities, free of charge, in cases involving the regulation of so-called "adult businesses." He says the Littleton case was closely watched.
"What the sexually oriented business was arguing," Crampton says, "is that they were entitled to special privileges with regard to the right to have their denial reviewed on a very expedited basis, whereby the courts were required to put aside everything else that was before them in order to hear from a business that panders to sex."
The lower federal courts had for many years reached differing conclusions as to the meaning of "prompt" judicial review as required by a 1965 Supreme Court ruling. However, in Littleton v. Z.J. Gifts, the court resolved the highly disputed issue in the municipality's favor in no uncertain terms.
"The U.S. Supreme Court, all nine justices in an unusual agreement, agreed to the final result, that the municipality was correct not to allow the [sexually-oriented business] those kinds of special rights," Crampton says.
According to the attorney, this ruling settles once and for all a municipality's right to impose reasonable restrictions on S.O.B. operations without having to fear costly First Amendment litigation over technicalities. He also notes that the case validates, once again, that the model ordinance regulating such adult businesses, which the AFA Law Center has offered to municipalities for years, is constitutionally sound.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia reiterated his opinion that the pandering of sex is not protected by the First Amendment. Crampton says it can only be hoped that eventually a majority of the Supreme Court will come to agree with Scalia, so America's cities can rid themselves of the harmful effects created by the "parasites" who run sexually-oriented businesses.
