September 7th, 2011 Yavapai County and Maricopa County Sherrifs raided the Sedona and Phoenix Goddess Temples and arrested eighteen people. A SWAT Team descended on the two temples detaining practitioners at gunpoint. To date thirty-three people have been charged, and the temples are being investigated as brothels. Temple practitioners were paraded in front of the waiting media, and their mug shots and legal names publicized.
Both Temples hold legal status as churches, and no minors, weapons, or drugs were found on the premises of either Temple. Tracy Elise, the founder and High Priestess of both Temples is still in jail along with 7 other people and her bail is set at an astonishingly high half a million dollars.
These arrests came after six months of undercover operations by the Yavapai County and Maricopa County Police Departments. It is the largest sex work related bust in Arizona since 2008, when the Desert Divas prostitution ring was busted, with over 100 people charged, including phone operators and photographers. There were no minors found in that investigation either.
We believe that these arrests, and all other arrests of consenting adults engaged in healing or sexual practices equate to a modern day witch hunt. In many cases, the money being spent by the police force to arrest, intimidate, and establish undercover sting operations is coming from large scale anti-trafficking campaigns intended to target child prostitution. Instead, the money donated by a public horrified by images of young children in cages, and sensationalized stories of sexual slavery is diverted into operations like the so called “Operation Goddess Temple.”
In press conferences, Police spokesmen say that Temple practitioners were engaging in acts of prostitution under the guise of religion. We say that the Arizona Police are using valuable funds, and unnecessary force to arrest consenting adults under the guise of protecting citizens and saving children.
Whether one believes in the validity of Tantra or sexual healing practices as a religion, it is not the charge of the government to legislate morality. Sex is legal in this society. Criminalizing prostitution, massage, and healing sexual practices bears all the injustice and inefficacy of prohibition, sodomy laws, and religious intolerance.
We demand the immediate release of all those arrested in affiliation with the Phoenix and Sedona Temples. We demand an end to police raids for non-violent crimes. We demand an end to the persecution of practitioners of sexual healing, and the decriminalization of prostitution.
To support the Goddess Temple directly, please visit http://goddessbless.org
To take action and support decriminalization, please visit http://swop-tucson.org
Sincerely,
SWOP-Tucson (Sex Workers’ Outreach Project, Tucson chapter)
For further information, or to speak directly to a spokesperson from SWOP-Tucson for press or media, please email info@swop-tucson.org
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