Statement of Bill Wood, Charlotte, North Carolina

"Gramsci wrote, 'The conception of law will have to be freed from every remnant of transcendence and absoluteness, practically from all moralist fanaticism.'..."

Click that link above right now. It's a remarkable read, and that gem he unearthed, glittering in the block-quote above, is just one of many.

And, yup:

The Sunday Telegraph

No job no excuse for turning down sex work
By Clare Chapman in Berlin and John Garnaut

January 31, 2005

[snip]

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services" at a brothel in Berlin faces cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Prostitution was legalised in Germany two years ago and brothel owners - who must pay tax and employee health insurance - were granted access to official databases of job seekers.

The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe. She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her "profile" and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did she realise she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month, to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest level since reunification in 1990.

The Government considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars.

"There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry," said Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specialises in such cases. "The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits."

[snip]