In addition to the measures against military recruiters described in Eugene's recent posts, Berkeley is also considering enacting a zoning ordinance to restrict their location in much the same way as other cities use zoning to restrict or ban businesses selling pornography:

If passed by a majority of Berkeley voters, a proposed initiative would require military recruiting offices and private military companies in Berkeley to first acquire a special use permit....

If the initiative passes, recruitment offices could not be opened within 600 feet of residential districts, public parks, public health clinics, public libraries, schools or churches...

The author of the initiative, Berkeley-based lawyer Sharon Adams, modeled the initiative after current zoning law that restricts the location of adult-oriented businesses.

"In the same way that many communities limit the location of pornographic stores, that's the same way we feel about the military recruiting stations," said Phoebe Sorgen, an initiative proponent and a member of the city's Peace and Justice Commission. "Teenagers that really want to find them will be able to seek them out and find them, but we don't want them in our face."

Conservatives are justifiably outraged by the proposed Berkeley measure. I share their indignation. However, it is striking that advocates of the Berkeley measure use most of the same arguments for it as many conservatives use to justify zoning out adult businesses and other enterprises they disapprove of.

For example, the Berkeleyites claim that the measure is justified on the basis of community morality in Berkeley, where much of the very left-wing population finds military recruiters offensive. As Berkeley Councilmember Dona Spring puts it, "I do want to do something, whatever we can do, to shut down an agency that offends our public standards." Conservatives similarly argue that local communities that find adult businesses offensive should be able to ban them for that reason. If conservative local majorities should be able to use zoning law to enforce their moral values, why shouldn't the left-wing local majority in Berkeley be able to do the same thing?

Similarly, both groups cite the need to protect the young. As Sharon Adams, author of the proposed Berkeley law explained, "We feel that as a community we need to protect the youth" from military recruiters. Similarly, conservatives seek to use zoning to protect the young from the supposedly corrupting influences of porn. In (very limited) defense of the Berkeley activists, it seems likely that joining the military (at least in a combat role) is a far more dangerous activity for the young than consuming porn.

Finally, both groups justify zoning restrictions on the grounds that the enterprises they oppose cause harmful "secondary effects" on the community. Conservatives claim that adult businesses cause crime and disorder. The Berkeley leftists argue that military recruiting stations promote violence, militarism, and discrimination against gays and lesbians. I think that the Berkeley secondary effects arguments are extremely implausible. But social science research suggests that the conservative ones aren't much better. For a good summary of the data, see Bryant Paul, et al., Government Regulation of "Adult Businesses" Through Zoning and Anti-Nudity Ordinances: Debunking the Legal Myth of Negative Secondary Effects,6 Communication Law & Policy 355 (2001). See also this more recent study.

To be clear, I don't believe that local governments should use zoning restrictions to target either recruiting stations or adult businesses. Those individuals who have a strong desire to isolate themselves from either one have many options for doing so. They can use restrictive covenants, live in a private planned community (as over 50 million Americans do already), or move to a neighborhood where there is little potential market for whatever type of business they disapprove of. However, they should not use the heavy hand of government to force out enterprises merely because they find them offensive. Zoning might be able to play a valuable role in providing certain local public goods and in restricting businesses that cause genuinely severe harm to their neighbors. But mere community disapproval - whether by the right or the left - should not be enough to justify such restrictions.