What does the adult industry and teacher unions have to do with each other? Well, according to one lobbyist, nothing. In a recent article from the Orange County Register strip clubs and novelty sex stores could face a 25% increase in tax to help school districts affected by strong budget cuts. This tax would fund education and its social services. The president of one teachers association feels that if a person could afford to buy luxuries due to their income, then they should pay tax on it. This bill, prompted by Assemblyman Charles Calderon, states the negatives of adult venues that some say are based on opinions rather than facts.

As a former teacher, I don’t really find this amusing. Most parents and children would not appreciate funding from a strip club tax. Most strip clubs would feel that they were being unfairly penalized. I don’t know that I would call novelty sex toys “luxury items”; the only thing that makes them so is that you can’t just find them in the drugstore—though you can find stuff for just about any other system of the body!

I don’t think picking on an industry is the way to go. Why not tax Mercedes or lobster or tickets to the OC Performing Arts Center? Why discriminate in this way?

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