---

   It's an embarrassing Alabama legal loophole: Prostitution is legal in some parts of the state because there's no law against it.

   Here's why: The state, believe or not, has a law against promoting prostitution, but not against prostitution itself. Municipalities can pass (and most have) their own laws against it. But a county commission, under Alabama's cockamamie 1901 constitution, can't prohibit prostitution without a constitutional amendment.

   That means that in unincorporated areas of the state - Mobile County, for one - where a county has not obtained such an amendment, prostitution is legal.

   State Sen. George Callahan, R-Theodore, is to be commended for trying to change this. At the request of health officials in Mobile County, he is sponsoring two bills in the Legislature.

   The first would make prostitution a crime statewide. If that one doesn't get support - and it certainly should - his other bill would amend the state constitution so that prostitution would at least be illegal in Mobile County.

   Mr. Callahan's legislation targets the prostitute and the customer in addition to anyone involved in the commission or promotion of the crime.

   The Register editorial board can't help but note, of course, that if the 1901 Alabama Constitution weren't so ridiculously cumbersome and inefficient, the simple legislative act of prohibiting a common crime in Mobile County could be handled by the Legislature, if not by the County Commission.

© Mobile Register. Used with permission.

Return to: Editorials Index