I’m guessing my regular readers, if asked which Colorado Politics story I would choose to write about this week, would guess the Out West Roundup, which I admit is a personal favorite. The notion New Mexico would launch a “Truth Commission” investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s ranch and what happened there is certainly worth exploring. One of the many, many ironies in the Epstein situation is the Department of Justice, rather than acting as an independent investigatory body that tries to get to the truth, instead is active in covering up a certain orange president’s involvement with that awful man and what he did to so many.

But I’m not going to talk about that today and instead will talk about a story that is actually tangentially related to the sex trafficking we now know took place on Epstein’s island and other locations. It is a story about which one must comment carefully, as the opportunity to accidentally (or, frankly, deliberately) misunderstand what I am saying is certainly there,

This week, dear readers, I’d like to draw your attention to a battle just getting going in the state legislature, the issue of legalization of prostitution.

Just that sentence alone likely raised the hairs on the back of many necks. There are certainly those whose kneejerk reaction will be to oppose any effort to decriminalize. That reaction may come from one’s religious beliefs, or elsewhere, but quite a few folks, including I assume nearly all the GOP members of the legislature, are automatic no votes.

But the issue is more complex than a simple rash rejection. And this is an issue wherein my oft mentioned libertarian streak is at its widest. Simply put, I favor decriminalization of prostitution, and outside of one’s moral code based on Judeo-Christian values, I can’t think of too many reasons to oppose the upcoming legislation. Oh, and though I speak of women in this essay, I would also want to see male sex work also legalized, for the same basic reasons I lay out.

As I am not a Christian (I consider myself a deist), I can’t think of any moral imperatives that allow me to control what others do behind closed doors. Some things are simply none of my business, or, frankly, yours. Your right to swing your arm, as they say, ends where my nose begins. And your arm is certainly not long enough to allow you to snoop in my bedroom.

The arguments most often heard in opposition to legalization involve claims that women will be trafficked and their lives will become more difficult. Frankly, the opposite is more likely to come to pass. As with our decriminalization of marijuana, legalization of prostitution would provide more protection to sex workers. Rather than hide in the shadows, controlled by pimps and trying to stay one step ahead of the law, legalization would actually empower and help secure women who wanted to make a living as a sex worker.

Just as with pot (I call it that, I’m told the kids these days call it “weed”), you get better results when you regulate prostitution. The state could require regular STD tests (actors are tested every two weeks in the adult film world) and tax it. Sex workers could unionize. Rather than increase sex trafficking, I suspect this new law would actually and dramatically reduce the trafficking of women, in that they would have no reason to hide, and therefore no reason to depend on pimps or others to control their lives under the guise of providing them safety.

Clearly no one should be forced into a life in the sex business if it is against their wishes, nor, or course, should a minor ever be allowed to become a sex worker before they are 18. Appropriate safeguards and clarity must exist in any proposed legislation to protect those too young to make informed decisions on their own.

A useful analogy might be the push we often see from the more religious types for abstinence-only sex ed in schools. Repeated studies have shown that forbidding sex before marriage among young people has one common result: babies. You’ve heard the joke, what do you call the parents of kids in abstinence-only education? Grandparents.

And for those who want to invoke a supposed moral high ground, I will tell you I believe tobacco shops and places that sell cigarettes are deeply immoral, in that they sell (push?) a product that causes slow and painful deaths. Yet I do not agree to the banning of tobacco sales. As long as smokers don’t blow smoke around me, I think it is a shame, but I don’t believe I have the right to regulate their private behavior.

It seems like a radical and new notion to legalize prostitution, but the idea is not new at all. It was legal for millennia in places like Mesopotamia and Greece, in licensed brothels. Heck, during the 19th century, it was mostly legal in the United States, and was seen as a method to “manage public health” and for taxation purposes.

I don’t have too many hopes the proposed legalization passes, but I hope it does. I believe it better for our society and in particular the women and men involved. It would help our tax base and allow sex workers protections under the law.

The noted feminist attorney Gloria Allred once said, “Why is it immoral to be paid for an act that is perfectly legal if done for free?

I think she has a good point.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.