Posted: January 3, 2013 at 9:09 pm

GOP “Erotic Massage” Parlor Landlord to Represent Billings on Capitol Hill

A hard-core, conservative Republican, religious city council member, who was caught doing business with an erotic massage parlor, will represent Montana’s largest town at the National League of Cities,  KTVQ is reporting.

As a member of the committee, Councilman Pitman will play a key role in shaping NLC’s policy positions, while advocating on behalf of America’s cities and towns on Capitol Hill, with the Administration, and at home.

The Billings Gazette revealed last year that Billings city councilman Denis Pitman made a tidy living as a commercial landlord, by renting space to the Fuji Spa.

On its website, Fuji Spa described itself as a massage parlor, spa and “escort business,” which offers “table showers” and “beautiful asian massage girls”, is open 24 hours, and accepts cash only. Patrons who visit the premises are also advised to please enter through the rear entrance of the establishment, and note that there is an ATM on site.

The screenshot below depicts the current Fuji Spa ad.  It shows the “spa” is still located at the same address and is dated December of 2012.

 

There are, in fact, many such establishments in Billings, as you can see from the Billings Gazette’s special advertising section devoted to them. Such massage parlors are legally okay.  It’s not like these places are brothels, after all.

And this must have been Pitman’s line of reasoning, because Pitman, by all appearances, is your basic religious conservative piece of work. He brags about his conservative street cred (says he is “the most conservative member of the city council,”), is a big-time Tea Partier, went to seminaries for his schooling, and is actually a man of the cloth. (He calls himself Reverend Pitman.)

He advertises his services as a theologist and “non-denominational Christian minister” who, according to his own website, will perform religious ceremonies and rites for a small fee.

And he is all family values, all the time. Check out his website. He’s a family man for sure. On his Facebook page he posts  family-oriented advice to his public–messages such as “Little Fockers is not appropriate viewing for anyone in my family except me and my wife.”

To be clear, there is nothing at all to suggest that he has ever collected rent in the form of a table shower or massage. And also, it must be noted that he once rented space to a medical marijuana provider, and took heat for it, and defended himself by saying that as long as the activities on the premises are legal, he would rent it to the tenant.

Perhaps Pitman will represent Billings at the national league as a libertarian and not as a conservative, who believes drugs and sex, even if proferred as goods for sale, must be off limits to government regulation or religious judgment. Probably not.

 

33 comments

  2. Paul S.

    I wonder that Q2 doesn’t tell us WHO appointed Pitman – local Billings folks? them? Did we get a choice? “Was appointed” doesn’t really cut it.

  3. Ben Tully

    I see that anyone who has an extra $150 – and isn’t in the mood for a table shower–can pay Mr. Pitman to marry or baptise them!

    From his website:

    As a non-denominational minister, Reverend Denis A. Pitman is able to perform civil and religious services of Weddings, Funerals and Memorial Services (personal and uplifting life remembrances), Christian Baptisms, Blessings, Renewal of Wedding vows (wedding anniversaries are a perfect time for this!)

    Cost: The typical offering to Reverend Denis Pitman is $150.00, however if extensive traveling or additional time is needed, a higher amount is customary. If cost is a factor, please visit with Rev. Pitman about other options. No one will be denied services based on inability to pay.

    About Reverend Denis A. Pitman:
    Rev. Denis was born in Butte, Montana, and raised in Billings, Montana. After attending Catholic Seminary for six years, he has a B.A. in Behavioral Science, and a M.A. in Theology. He was ordained on February 20, 1997 and then founded Big Sky Ministries in 1998. With a strong religious background, Reverend Denis found that there were many people who fell outside of mainstream religion, and set up Big Sky Ministries to serve them. As a licensed funeral director in both Montana, Rev. Denis has attended the services of many religions, and has come to understand the importance of the rituals that we use to celebrate the major events in our lives..

    If you or someone you know needs the assistance of Big Sky Ministries, please have them contact us at xxx-xxxx

  4. Tragic City

    Why leave off that on Pitman’s website, the above pic is labled “MY BIG REDNECK WEDDING!!!”

  6. Susan Curtis

    He’s also a conspiracy theorist. He posted this exchange on his facebook page –he thinks that the 21st century highway program is a conspiracy of the United Nations!

  8. lisa o'conner

    See ladies, using birth control so you don’t have 15 babies is of the devil, but profiting from a massage parlor makes you an upstanding community leader! Who wouldn’t want to be a republican!

  10. Larry Kralj, Environmental Rangers

    In their never ending, determind, quixotic effort to raise the level of their journalistic standards to at LEAST the level of a pisspoor jr. high newspaper, the GF Spitoon has scoured the landscape to find the biggest buffoons OUT their to print. And yes, they have succeded mightily in their efforts. Whom better to write about the Newtown massacre than a complete imbecile? Sure it’s pathetic, but then so is the GF Spitoon, a gag newspaper in search of a retarded readership!

    Read the following and please tell me just what was worthy of a guest column about this piece of shit?

    http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20130104/OPINION/301040010/Guest-opinion-Armed-civilians-could-halt-brazen-attacks-quickly

    Legitamizing imbecility is NOT the province of a real newspaper! Is it? Since when?

  11. Norma Duffy (@Ilikewoods)

    “We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.”
    ― Christopher Hitchens

    • Rob Kailey

      One of Hitchens’ more spiteful fallacies. It could well be argued from the evidence that faith attracts people who are “more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.”

      • Norma Duffy @Ilikewoods

        You have a right to your Opinion of Hitchens, But it is not mine. Infact, I will give another:

        “About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough—and even miraculous enough if you insist—I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about?

        Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from pointing out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. (It is on a par with the equally subtle inquiry: Since you don’t believe in our god, what stops you from stealing and lying and raping and killing to your heart’s content?) Just as the answer to the latter question is: self-respect and the desire for the respect of others—while in the meantime it is precisely those who think they have divine permission who are truly capable of any atrocity—so the answer to the first question falls into two parts. A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called ‘meaningless’ except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one’s everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities… but there, there. Enough.”
        ― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir

  12. Turner

    Off Topic: I see that Steve Daines’ first(?) vote was against relief for Sandy victims in NY and NJ. The bill passed, with even Michele Bachmann voting for it. I guess Daines is to the right of the head of the Tea Party Caucus.

    I guess Daines really hates him some Blue States.

  13. larry kurtz

    Yet to be seen is how Montana’s new AG office will prosecute a Democratic executive’s agenda: you folks may be in for some wild shit.