Fight For Swing Club Rights

Liberated Christians
Cyber Swing/Polyamory Resource Center
Promoting Intimacy and Other-Centered Sexuality

Everyone Can Fight For Swing Club Rights
Many U.S. Cities Watching Phoenix
& Waiting To Also Outlaw Swing Clubs

For extensive background of this fight from my reports at the 1998 public hearings , 2002 busts and latest 2003 busts and 2004 updates see Phoenix Gone Wild Enforcing Ban on Swing Clubs, Action Plan To Fight for Swingers Privacy Rights" at http://www.libchrist.com/Phxgonewild/contents.html

Phoenix Swing Club Support Suggested Letters
Encouraged by Dave in Phoenix, Liberated Christians
Swing and Polyamory Resource Center
http://www.libchrist.com

I encourage everyone whether in Phoenix or not to support a letter writing campaign to the City Council and new Mayor of Phoenix regarding the recent busts of swing clubs based on a 1999 Phoenix law making swing clubs illegal. There is an ongoing Court challenge of the law, and much media support for police not wasting resources going after private consenting adult swing clubs.

There are 3 letters, for Phoenix residents, Arizona Residents and out state folks that wish to support the cause. In the announcement below the letter is a website with all the relevant E-mail address and a way to send letters directly to the Mayor and Council.
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Letter 1 - for Phoenix residents

Dear Phoenix City Council Member:

I am a registered voter and resident of Phoenix. I oppose the recent City of Phoenix enforcement actions targeting private membership clubs for consenting adults interested in nontraditional sex practices. Surely the City of Phoenix has more important things to spend time and the taxpayer’s money on than hassling clubs that harm no one.

These police raids, and the ordinance on which they are based, are efforts to impose on all of us a narrow-minded morality expressed by religious political extremists. There is no reputable scientific evidence that these clubs or their activities are harmful to individuals, neighborhoods, the City or anything else. The Supreme Court of the United States recently ruled that such an effort to impose a moral view can not justify government intrusion into our privacy or infringement of our right to enjoy liberty and pursue happiness.

Millions of American adults - including your neighbors, friends, ministers, teachers, military personnel, lawyers, and doctors - participate in these activities. And many of them, like me, vote and want to support candidates that oppose government interference in the private lives of consenting
adults.
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Letter 2 - for Arizona residents

Dear Phoenix City Council Member:

Although I do not reside in Phoenix, I am a registered voter and resident of Arizona, I oppose the recent City of Phoenix enforcement actions targeting private membership clubs for consenting adults interested in nontraditional sex practices. Surely the City of Phoenix has more important things to spend time and the taxpayer’s money on than hassling clubs that harm no one.

These police raids, and the ordinance on which they are based, are efforts to impose on all of us a narrow-minded morality espoused by religious political extremist groups. There is no reputable scientific evidence that these clubs or their activities are harmful to individuals, neighborhoods, the City or anything else. The Supreme Court of the United States recently ruled that such an effort to impose a moral view cannot justify government intrusion into our privacy or infringement of our right to enjoy liberty and pursue happiness.

Millions of American adults - including your neighbors, friends, ministers, teachers, military personnel, lawyers, and doctors - participate in these activities. And many of them, like me, vote and want to support candidates that oppose government interference in the private lives of consenting adults.
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Letter 3 - for Concerned Americans outside of Arizona

Dear Phoenix City Council Member:

Although I am not a resident of Phoenix, I travel and have considered Phoenix as a place I would like to visit. I cannot, however, in good conscious, support a city that takes such repressive action that infringes our personal privacy. I will reconsider supporting the economy in Phoenix only when the city changes its views on private clubs.

I believe that the recent City of Phoenix enforcement actions targeting private membership clubs for consenting adults interested in nontraditional sex practices are illegal. The United States Supreme Court recently ruled that government has no business enforcing a narrow view of morality on its citizens. That is precisely what is happening here.

There is no reputable scientific evidence that these clubs or their activities are harmful to individuals, neighborhoods, the City or anything else. Surely the City of Phoenix has more important things to spend their time and the taxpayer’s money on than hassling clubs that harm no one.

Millions of American adults - including your neighbors, friends, ministers, teachers, military personnel, lawyers, and doctors - participate in these activities. You are going to find that they, like me, oppose government interference in the private lives of consenting adults. This oppressive policy can only alienate potential visitors to Phoenix (like me) and, I hope and believe, impel Phoenix voters to get rid of a City administration that tolerates such abuse of citizens’ rights.
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The following is the official introduction to the Campaign

We have a very important message to convey to all lifestyle people. We encourage you to take a few minutes and send the City of Phoenix a message. The email below is currently being sent all over the country.

ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLES UNITE

Concerned citizens, our goal is to alert Phoenix's new Mayor, Phil Gordon, and our City Council, of our concerns regarding the repression of alternative lifestyles in this City. We feel our constitutional rights to freedom of expression, privacy, and to peacefully co-exist, in a society built on differences, have been violated. Morality should not be dictated by the government!

Help us to spread the word that we are many, we have a vision and we have a voice.

Please take 5 minutes out of your day to stand up and be counted. Email letters can be sent automatically at http://www.clubchameleon.com/LetterOfConcern.htm. You can find form letters or create your own. All email addresses are provided. If you use the above site, copies of letters also go to new Mayor Phil Gordon at phil.gordon@phoenix.gov)

Send this email to as many as you can. Numbers matter.
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A Message To Our Friends And Allies From The Woodhull Freedom Federation

The Woodhull Freedom Federation has entered the struggle in Phoenix against that city's repressive and, we believe, unconstitutional prosecution of gay men's and swingers' private clubs. We need your help on this important effort.

For five years, an agency of the City of Phoenix has been raiding and harassing swingers' clubs under a local ordinance that makes it a crime to 'operate a live sex act business' . Recently, a gay men's bathhouse was also raided under that ordinance. These actions fly directly in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling, in Lawrence v. Texas, that governments cannot take action against private sexual expression solely to impose moral views on its citizens. This ordinance has no legitimate justification. Moreover, its enforcement has discriminatively targeted sexual minorities,swingers and GLBT clubs while ignoring businesses (like adult motels) that obviously fall within the terms of this ordinance.

This will not be an easy battle. Powerful religious political extremist groups, notably the Community Defense Counsel, are behind the Phoenix oppression and will pull out all the stops to continue what they see as a significant vindication of their anti-sex agenda. However, even though Phoenix is in many ways a conservative city, polls show public disapproval of these raids and the local press has thus far been largely on our side.

Phoenix residents are organizing politically to fight this battle, but they need your help. WFF is helping these activists as part of our initiative to help local communities organize around issues of sexual liberty. Please take a moment to write a letter to the City Council about this important issue. Email responses can be sent to the appropriate City Council representative automatically at http://www.clubchameleon.com/LetterOfConcern.htm.

Thank you for your help and support.

Sincerely,
Judy A. Guerin
Co-director, Woodhull Freedom Federation

Woodhull Freedom Federation and Foundation
1312 18th Street NW, Suite 103
Washington, DC 20036
202-466-2900 (phone)
202-466-6242 (fax)

www.woodhullfederation.org
info@woodhullfoundation.org
jguerin@woodhullfoundation.org
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The Woodhull Freedom Foundation and Federation (WFF) are devoted to education and public advocacy in support of the proposition that safe and consensual sexual expression is a fundamental human right.

Based in Washington, DC, WFF brings together experienced, successful sexual freedom activists who seek to eliminate the barriers, governmental and private, to expressions of human sexuality in the United States and around the world. Helping to mobilize diverse grassroots communities, WFF utilizes lobbying, outreach, and education to help change antiquated and unjust sex laws.
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Dave adds:
Victoria Woodhull was the out-spoken, “racy” activist who introduced sex-positivist values to America during the Victorian era. She believed that both men and women had a right to “free love" without government or public intervention. Throughout the 1870s, she lectured and published, arguing against society’s sexual double standard. Woodhull advocated sexual satisfaction and love for all, legal prostitution, the right to multiple partners, and supported people’s abilities to make their own decisions about consensual sexual activities.

"To those who denounce me, I reply: Yes I am a free lover. I have an inalienable, constitutional and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or as short a period as I can; to change that love every day if I please." - Victoria Woodhull

They have a great website, discussions of the Texas law, and a FREE 84 page manual that can be downloaded: "Advocacy for Sexual Freedom:
A Practical Guide to Creating and Leading Issue Advocacy Campaigns"

Judy Guerin, Co-Director I have met in Phoenix a few years ago when she was with another Free Speech coalition group trying to help the Phoenix swing clubs. She resigned shortly after however to help found the Woodhull Freedom Foundation.

Their great website: http://www.woodhullfoundation.org
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Community Defense Counsel - The Enemy
Formerly known as The National Family Legal Foundation it is based here in Scottsdale AZ. Since 1990, Community Defense Counsel has provided resources and legal counsel to help communities take effective, constitutional action against the harmful effects of "adult" businesses. CDC attorneys are frequently called on to draft, review, or provide expert testimony on legislation at all levels of government. Sample ordinances drafted by CDC attorneys are used as models by counties, cities and towns seeking to enact legally sound regulations for sexually oriented businesses. In less than a decade, CDC has provided key resources and/or legal counsel to more than 1,000 cities, counties, and towns dealing with the adverse effects of sexually oriented businesses. More than three quarters of those municipalities requested assistance relating to the drafting, implementation, or defense of adult business ordinances. - Source http://www.communitydefense.org/about.cfm
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Best wishes
Dave in Phoenix
Liberated Christians
Swing and Polyamory Resource Center
http://www.libchrist.com