This past Wednesday December 29, 2010, SD State Senator-Elect Elizabeth Kraus, her husband Jim, and Pastor Scott Craig (KSLT/KLMP Public Policy Director) traveled with Dale Bartscher, Executive Director of the ‘Family Heritage Alliance’ to Lead, SD where the Family Heritage Alliance held a ‘Lead Community Meeting’. It was there that we discussed the up coming City Commissioner’s Meeting and their proposed Adult Orientated Business Ordinance (AOB’s) which, if approved, will allow AOB’s to begin operation within their city limits. We had nearly 40 folks in attendance and you could have cut the ‘passion’ in the room with a knife. It was a terrific evening of encouraging those folks, helping them set a winning strategy and seeing them step up and claim the ‘high ground’ in this fight for that which is right.
This coming Monday evening January 3, 2011 @ 5:00p.m, Dale Bartscher will give testimony at the City Commissioner’s meeting @ the Lead City Hall. He and the family oriented people of Lead deserve your support and encouragement in stopping the operation of AOB’s in the city limits of Lead. PLEASE MAKE PLANS TO ATTEND THIS MEETING AND SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR DECENCY.
The Family Heritage Alliance is supporting the good citizens of Lead as they strive to hold back the city’s rush to establishing nude dancing rules. These new rules will only but accommodate a local Lead Adult Orientated Business, the ‘Wild Thing’ bar.
For more information go to the following Rapid City Journal LINK posted: Tuesday, December 21, 2010 6:30 am.
The following is an e-mail recently sent by the FHA Executive Director to each of the Lead City Commissioners and Mayor:
Dear City Commissioner,
I trust you and yours have had a wonderful ‘Christmas’ and now look forward to a great ‘New Year’. I wish to ‘thank you’ for your service to the great community of Lead as one of their City Commissioners.
We have been closely monitoring the news coming out of Lead concerning the ‘Wild Thing’ bar. Recently a number of Lead residents have been in contact with us. They are concerned about the possibility of an AOB Ordinance being approved which would allow the ‘Wild Thing’ bar to include adult nude dancing.
There is no doubt but that revenues for the ‘Wild Thing’ bar will go up if they are allowed to continue with adult nude dancing, however, at what cost to the city of Lead? Study after study indicates clearly that the only ones who profit from an AOB are those who make it and sell it. It will hurt your community, families and children. Yes, it will eventually undercut your community’s safety.
One must ask, “What really goes on inside a sexually oriented business such as this?” For your information I’d like to give you an inside view of the ‘strip bar business’. I’m including a website that details testimony of some of those who once worked in the industry. They will provide for you the most telling insight. Read what they have to say by simply CLICKING HERE: http://www.ccv.org/issues/sex-oriented-businesses/stripbars-an-inside-view/
The ‘Family Heritage Alliance’ supports the citizens of Lead and their concern for healthy community values. Dr. Victor Cline, a clinical psychologist from the University of Utah, has found a near-universal pattern associated with pornography use and concludes, “The major consequence of being addicted to pornography is not the probability or possibility of committing a serious sex crime (though this can and does occur), but rather the disturbance of the fragile bonds of intimate family and marital relationships. This is where the most grievous pain, damage, and sorrow occur.” Yes, your Lead citizens have every reason to be concerned about the direction you as a City Commissioner now take the city when it comes to your AOB ordinance.
If this AOB is allowed to operate it’s adult nude dancing then there will be problems both inside and outside this sexually orientated business. Inside the nude dancing establishment, patrons and dancers often engage in public sexual contact; private dances are opportunities for acts of prostitution. Outside you will find that the neighborhood or business district surrounding sex businesses typically suffers a decline in property values and increases in crime, especially sex crimes. So, property values go down, crime rate and abuse go up! This certainly should make one pause and consider the gravity of approving this type of business in your community.
This is more than just harmless fun or mere adult entertainment. There is proof of harm. The opening of this Pandora’s Box in your wonderful community will cause real harm to real people. We protect ourselves and our communities, in part, through the values we affirm as important. Treating every human being with respect, equality, and dignity, are values we should all be able to embrace, as a society and as individuals. The harms of sexually oriented businesses result from replacing respect, equality and dignity with a candy-coated message of greed.
Thank you for allowing me to take a moment of your time to discuss this issue at hand. I shall be looking forward to meeting you in the near future as I’ll be in attendance at this Monday night’s, January 3, City Commissioner’s meeting.
Standing for Faith, Family and Freedom,
Dale Bartscher, Executive Director
Family Heritage Alliance
“It will hurt your community, families and children. Yes, it will eventually undercut your community’s safety.”
That’s a fallacy, a myth created by fundamentalists and other religious groups.
“Treating every human being with respect, equality, and dignity, are values we should all be able to embrace, as a society and as individuals. The harms of sexually oriented businesses result from replacing respect, equality and dignity with a candy-coated message of greed.”
Seriously? The reality is that societies that are open about human sexuality experience far less sex crimes an dcrimes of violence against women. Rapid City for example was the statsical “rape capital” of the country a few years ago. I’m sure that will change now that Spencers has stopped selling their goofy novelty sex items.
Here’s to Lead quickly passing an AOB ordinance, in accoudance with the freedoms established by our Founding Fathers when they penned our Constitution and Declaration. Send the Puritans back to England where they belong. Bring back “Pam’s Purple Door” if you want sex crimes to decrease.
Do you have children, Inde? Would you like to explain to your son or daughter the great benefits resulting from AOB’s? How do you know that your dreaded fundamentalists created these myths and fallacies?
I could easily explain the great benefits of living in a free society, where people are allowed to operate a business others want to patronize, and that this right is protected by our Constituton. I could also easily explain the fundamentalist philosophy that they are privy to the only true way, the one true path to God.
I’ve lived in Rapid for 40 years and I’m pretty sure Shotgun Willies or the adult video stores in town haven’t done any harm to my children, or anyone elses for that matter. The harmful connection exists only in your mind.
You can easily explain (rationalize) anything in your own mind. This issue is not a matter of rights but of decency and righteousness. I’m so glad you have relieved us of the fear that AOB’s have not harmed anyone. The world will breathe a sigh of relief that you have spoken on this issue.
You do not have the standing to arbitraritly decide for everyone what constitutes “decency and righteousness.” I doubt you can even provide any scripture unequivocally stating God is opposed to exotic dancing. It’s all a figment of your religious imagination.
And you don’t have the “standing” to decide either. We are both just men………sinners, disposed to pursue the world and the flesh. I am not better than you nor are you better than I. But you want a detailed instruction manual for life. You want Scripture to spell out every minute detail to define everything. Scripture doesn’t speak of exotic dancing specifically neither does it speak of space travel or laptop computers or your worship of the majority. Your worship of things secular and liguistics is not advisable.
Believe it or not, it’s possible to separate politics and religion, as the great Thomas Jefferson set forth in his writings and our founding documents. A person can have both in his life, without compromising either. How truly sad that you consider anything secular to be evil. It’s as if you believe the only good in the world originates with a Christian church.
I agree with you, you or I don’t have standing to tell others how to live. The dancers and business owners must decide for themselves. And our Constitution guarantees they are able to, and they are.
If your religion is something you do on Sunday or whatever day you worship or it is something you think about only when reading the Bible (or your Tanakh) or you don’t actually live your life by your religious commitment and beliefs, then you might be able to seperate your religion and your politics. My religion (my belief in God, my acceptance of Jesus Christ in my life) is my life. It affects and shapes every aspect of my life. It affects my family life, my professional life, my leisure life, my relationships with all people. It is impossible to seperate my commitment to my God from any other aspect of my life. My commitment to God is the foundation on which my beliefs are built. God does not care for me part-time and He expects my faithfulness and commitment to Him not to be part-time. My commitment cannot be compartmentalized. Others may decide for themselves as to their commitment to their Creator but part-time or non-commitment is at their own peril.
Exactly how did God communicate His directives to you?
I truly appreciate you taking the time to post this. I really liked reading it and am looking forward to more posts from you! Keep em coming.