On this week’s episode of The Katie Halper we talk with Melissa Gira Grant, author of Playing the Whore: the Work of Sex Work about Amnesty International’s historic vote to decriminalize sex work. Plus Becky Bond, the political director of Credo Mobile tells us about Chuck Schumer’s attempt to block the peace deal with Iran and what we can do about it. Then we discuss why Donald Trump is, scarily enough, the most progressive GOP candidate when it comes to women’s issues.
Memorable Quotes
“When police arrest you they don’t ask, are you empowered or are you a victim? They just take you away.” – Melissa Gira Grant
“Often when I argue that sex work should be decriminalized, people respond by saying, ‘well would you want your boyfriend to go to a prostitute?’ And I wouldn’t. But I also wouldn’t want my boyfriend to go to a Young Republicans meeting. But that doesn’t mean those meetings should be illegal.” – Katie
“You have to have a way to make powerful democrats feel pain. That’s how we win. Not by asking nicely. Politicians don’t do anything that we don’t make them do. It’s like that Frederick Douglass quote, ‘Power concedes nothing without a demand.’ And our role as progressives is not to suck up to powerful people but it’s to pressure them and make them do the right thing because we know that the right wing is investing millions and millions of dollars to try and kill this deal. We don’t have this money but we have people.” -Becky Bond
“The thing that’s so frustrating about the empowerment conversation is it’s a double standard. We don’t apply this to anybody else in any other job. We don’t say to the fight for 15 folks, ‘do you really love McDonalds? I dunno! I’m not so sure.’ Why is this somehow the exception where labor organizing is somehow impossible? Are we trying to protect people from the very dire situations that all workers face when their rights are not respected? Or are we trying to express some kind of opinion?”- Melissa Gira Grant
“Low carbon footprint sex-work. Farm to table. Crop to cup.” – Gabe Pacheco on the environmental advantage of decriminalizing sex work.
The Katie Halper Show 