February 18, 2026 02:37 PM UTC

Letting The Prostitution Bill Down Easy

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• by: Colorado Pols

As Colorado Springs-based moral panic incubator Focus on the Family reports to their flock today, with one hand we assume while the other is clutched tightly around their pearls:

Colorado legislators have introduced a bill that would remove all legal prohibitions forprostitution throughout the state.

While Nevada permits prostitution in licensed brothels in specific counties, and Maine has decriminalized selling sex — but not purchasing it, if this bill is passed and signed into law, Colorado would be the first state to fully legalize and regulate “commercial sexual activity.”

…SB26-097, “Decriminalize Adult Commercial Sexual Activity Among Consenting Adults,” “repeals the state criminal offenses of prostitution, soliciting for prostitution, keeping a place of prostitution, patronizing a prostitute, and prostitute making display.”

As you can imagine, FOTF is fully freaking out on behalf of your family:

Public solicitation for prostitution could become commonplace in cities and towns, exposing even young children to this perversion of God’s good design for relationships and sexuality.

The Denver Post’s Seth Klamann might be considered a more even-handed news source on the bill:

“Whatever your morals are, I don’t believe the government should be involved in the bedroom of consenting adults,” said Sen. Nick Hinrichsen, a Pueblo Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors. “But beyond that, what you learn is when you (criminalize prostitution), the repercussions are harmful.”

Hinrichsen acknowledged the bill faced steep odds, even in a legislature controlled by his party, and he said his toughest challenge would be getting his colleagues to move past “the moral judgment that the behavior is wrong” to consider what he says is the data supporting the bill.

Although the issue of legalizing what’s colloquially known as the “world’s oldest profession” is by no means a new subject, and there are well-formed intellectual arguments in support of this bill, conservatives from local talk radio to the ubiquitous Libsoftiktok have seized on the legislation as the latest proof that Colorado is circling the drain of moral turpitude. Organizations like Focus on the Family rush to scare their members about bills like this in fundraising appeals, and overall, these bills generate far more agitation among their opponents than supporters–a phenomenon known as the “intensity gap.” It’s based on the correct principle that a person angry about a moral wedge issue like prostitution will be much more intense in their opposition than supporters will be in support.

As a result, these longshot social interest bills, which we see every year from both sides on their respective pet issues, tend to be more useful in organizing terms for their opponents. FOTF doesn’t tell this to their gullible members, but the real reason they’re in a hurry to publicize this bill is that it will almost certainly not make it through the legislative process into law, with odds in favor of the bill dying in its very first committee hearing. Recognition of this reportedly persuaded the sponsors to not run the bill in 2025, curiously deciding this election-year session would be preferable.

Our verdict on this bill is twofold: to opponents, milk this DOA legislation while you can! And to the sponsors, whose honorable intentions we don’t question, we would ask them to perhaps consider the relative merit of “starting a conversation” about a policy change over supplying talking points, however misinformed, for the MAGA right’s sex-crazed phantasmagoria. The immediate unintended consequence of this doomed legislation is that it gives Republicans desperately looking for something besides Jeffrey Epstein to talk about…a change of subject.

To avoid doing more harm than good, it is necessary to read both the headlines and the room.