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The West Des Moines Drury Inn and Suites is part of a Midwestern chain. CEO Charles Drury has said his hotels are owned and controlled by people, like himself, who are "adherents of the Catholic faith and wish to conduct their business in a manner that does not violate the principles of their faith."Drury's declaration of faith came in an amicus brief filed to support Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. in their Supreme Court case to restrict employee access to emergency contraception. One generous profile of the Drury business in Lodging magazine lauded it as "Family Values Meet Real Business Value." Drury last made national headlines when it was reported that one of their hotels near Ferguson, Missouri fired a staff member for posting a video online that showed dozens of Department of Homeland Security vehicles parked there just ahead of the grand jury decision on the killing of Michael Brown by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson.Black trans women don't need to be doing anything to be profiled: It's enough to just be breathing, to just be seen.
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The laws against prostitution the hotel sought to invoke have been up for debate from the founding of this country. Over the course of our history, under the rubric of fighting prostitution, we have outlawed being in public after dark ("nightwalking"), cross-dressing, or crossing state lines for "immoral purposes." Would someone be an acceptable target for profiling for breaking these more archaic laws? Why does breaking these laws, revised or rarely enforced now, no longer constitute doing something wrong?At their core, all of these laws are meant to criminalize a body for its conduct, past, present or future. Today, the penalty for many municipal-level prostitution charges are so-called SOAP orders: "Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution." Law enforcement use these to keep bodies out of view, to control the movements of bodies no matter what they are doing. Certain bodies—black bodies, trans bodies—are already always suspect. Enforcing these laws provides rationale for the expulsion of those bodies from public, for making people invisible.At their core, all of these laws are meant to criminalize a body for its conduct, past, present or future.
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