HUNTINGBURG, IN — Not everyone in the Dubois County area loves the Love Boutique. In fact, approximately 350 locals gathered recently in order to “Rally for Decency” at the Huntingburg Memorial Gymnasium in order to express their total lack of affection for the business, which plans to expand its services.Reclaim Our Culture, Kentuckiana (ROCK) assisted religious and community members keen to protest the Love Boutique’s plan to expand its bookstore to include an adult motel, café, and shop at a new location, which had formerly been a truck stop on U.S. 231. The owners have applied for a restaurant permit from Spencer County, which has jurisdiction over the area.
After a short video outlining what group members consider to be the harm that pornography and the adult entertainment industry wreak upon communities, ROCK president Bryan Wickens addressed the crowd of protestors, who share the group’s vision of bringing the area closer to “the Judeo-Christian principles upon which our country was founded.”
According to Wickens, “We have to protect our homes, we have to protect our families, and we have to protect our children from this filth and the threat that it poses to them — and the threat is very real.”
In addition to making their loathing for adult businesses in general, and the Love Boutique specifically, abundantly clear, the protestors are raising money to assist Spencer County in its legal battle with the shop, which contends that a county ordinance targeted at adult businesses is unconstitutional. So far the county has set aside $40,000 for the fight.
Cincinnati attorney H. Louis Sirkin has been selected to represent the Love Boutique and is considered to be one of the best obscenity trail lawyers I the country. Sirkin contends that the Love Boutique is a valid business selling constitutionally protected products and citizens who find it offensive should just stay away. “I don’t like gun shops,” he points out, “so I don’t go there. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be there.”
Opponents insist that the affects felt by communities due to the presence of adult businesses extends beyond merely those who enter and make purchases. Huntingburg Mayor Gail Kemp and Police Chief Ron Drew worry about the possibility of the shop attracting sexual predators from outside of the area or encouraging predation among the locals, as well as lower property values and increased crime in the town of 6,600.
The Rally for Decency was able to raise somewhat more than $2,100 for the Community Defense Fund, set up by Spencer officials for the legal battle against the bookstore.
