Now that the legislature’s back in session, doing what it does, I’d like to pass along without comment a story in today’s San Francisco Chronicle:

A debate over banning gun shows at the Cow Palace turned into an argument over whether the Exotic Erotic Ball should be barred as well.

State Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, was carrying a bill, SB1733, to end gun shows at the Cow Palace, a state property in Daly City. Speier cited a federal study that found gun shows to be a place where gun laws were routinely broken and said community leaders around the Cow Palace had asked the state to ban gun shows.

Through a parliamentary maneuver, Republicans in the Senate sought to amend Speier’s bill to also ban the presence of the annual Exotic Erotic Ball, billed as “the world’s wildest and sexiest party.” Democrats voted to defeat the amendments.

“You are voting to keep live sex acts in a state facility going on,” Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside (San Diego County), told his colleagues. Morrow also passed out advertisements for the event, which takes place in October, on the Senate floor.

In response, Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, deadpanned: “I’ve never heard of any kids on a playground killed by a live sex act.”

Another Republican senator, Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta (Riverside County), argued that if gun shows should be banned, raves should as well. He cited an incident in January of last year in which two people died at a dance party at the Cow Palace and demanded of Speier whether any deaths had ever been connected to a gun show at the Palace.