An entry to help make up for the slow slogging due to Make-Out Monday’s flu pandemic at the Stranger’s office:

The MSM doesn’t usually get much credit for creative thinking, but Steve Chapman at the Chicago Tribune today had a great column about the Spitzer mess. He’s a hard-core libertarian, and so his argument

Politicians take people’s money with a promise to fulfill desires that supposedly can’t be attained any other way. Prostitutes do the same, though by reputation, they are more reliable in delivering

I understand why Spitzer’s alleged hiring of a call girl was stupid, selfish, reckless, immoral and a betrayal of his family. What I don’t understand is why it was illegal.

It’s not as though sex is otherwise divorced from money. If it were, hot young women would be found on the arms of poor older men as often as they are seen with rich ones.

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comes as no surprise to any regular readers. But he goes on, and connects the Supreme Court’s striking down of Texas’ sodomy law fin Lawrence and Gardner v. Texas as a route that could be taken to make prostitution legal.

But all this is secondary to the priority of human freedom. We no longer believe the government has a right to prevent homosexuals or heterosexuals from engaging in sexual practices. In 2003, the Supreme Court had the wisdom to strike down a Texas sodomy prosecution against two homosexuals caught in the act.

“The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives,” asserted the court. “The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government.”

Some brilliant lawyer ought to ask the courts why the state may ban one type of sex between consenting adults but not another. Maybe Eliot Spitzer would like to take it on.

And this from the Chicago Tribune, a paper that makes the Gray Lady look technicolor most days of the week.