From: Adam Stuart [mailto:stuartadam@bellsouth.net] Sent: Sunday, November 17, 2019 7:01 PM To: info@nationalsclc.org Cc: stuartadam@bellsouth.net Subject: adult arcades in Jacksonville and human rights
To: Dr. Charles Steele, President, Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Dear Dr. Steele,
Thank you for your appearance in Jacksonville, Florida before the Jacksonville City Council in October 2019 in which you advocated for keeping adult arcade machines legal. The mention of you and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in a local news article led me to read more about you and the SCLC which refreshed my memory that the SCLC has roots going back to the early civil rights movement and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Because of this important history and the fact that the SCLC works to improve lives of marginalized and impoverished people, and because it works to reform oppressive policy measures and other institutionalized discrimination, I am writing to you today regarding another subject, in addition to adult arcades, that I mentioned in my October 14th email below to the Jacksonville City Council, below: legislation for human rights of women and men by decriminalizing sex work. These human rights include the human right to sexual freedom in consensual relationships and the human rights to bodily autonomy, privacy, freedom of association and property rights. Just FYI, my feeling is that the SCLC should affirm these human rights and the need for full decriminalization of consensual prostitution and other consensual sex work throughout the United States. Decriminalization would prevent much human suffering that would otherwise continue to be inflicted by unjust anti-prostitution laws, police and mass incarceration. This would include prevention of human suffering by many marginalized and impoverished people.
It appears that in the name of combating human trafficking, various counties’ sheriff’s offices have been doing something deeply evil — wrecking hundreds of lives of adults by arresting them on prostitution or similar charges for consensual activities which should be considered to be their human right to do.
Like Human Rights Watch (HRW) has indicated, criminalizing adult, voluntary and consensual sex – including consensual exchange of sexual services – is not compatible with the human right to personal autonomy and privacy. Government should not be telling consenting adults who they may have sexual relations with and on what terms.
Anti-prostitution laws are unjust and violate human rights including the rights to bodily autonomy, freedom of association and/or property rights. And they violate the human right to sexual freedom in consensual relationships.
Government should stop arresting adults for consensual sex. Every such arrest on prostitution or similar charges is a human rights violation by police.
Consensual sexual activity should be fully decriminalized, and it is good that Bill 23-0318 in Washington, D.C. finally received a hearing.
Decriminalization would help sex workers and clients who are victimized by serious crimes to feel comfortable reporting those crimes without fearing arrest. Thus decriminalization would help stop human trafficking.
I invite you to please read my emails below and to explore the various videos and articles at the links below. These include, firstly, a link to a video of the April 22, 2019 press conference in Orlando, Florida regarding decriminalizing sex work; articles by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International; and articles on Bill 23-3018 in Washington, D.C.
For liberty and human rights,
Adam Stuart
Jacksonville, Florida