ERLC, others call on Czechs to reject legal prostitution

By Tom Strode - May 14, 2004

The ERLC and more than 110 allies have called on the Czech Republic to reject reported plans to legalize prostitution.

In a May 5 letter to President Vaclav Klaus and other Czech leaders, ERLC President Richard Land and the co-signers said such an act “would be a terrible mistake for the country as a whole and, in particular, for the women and children of the Eastern Europe region who will be victims of the Czech sex trade.” It also would “irreparably harm” the Czech Republic’s relations with the United States and other countries, the letter warned.

Legalizing prostitution would make the Czech Republic “the gateway for the flow of women and children from poorer Easter and Central European countries to sex industries throughout Western Europe and the world—an act unworthy of Czechs’ traditions of fighting for their own freedom,” Land and the others said in the letter. They said they would resist such a Czech effort by working through Congress and other legislative bodies, as well as “through our organized women’s movements and from tens of thousands of church and synagogue pulpits.”

The international coalition that endorsed the letter included signers from Russia, India, Israel, Ireland, England and France. Among signers from the United States were Todd Bassett, national commander of The Salvation Army; Clive Calver, president of World Relief; Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals; Michael Horowitz, senior fellow of the Hudson Institute; Donna Rice Hughes, president of Enough Is Enough; Diane Knippers, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy; Connie Mackey, vice president for government affairs of Family Research Council; Ronald Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action; David Stevens, executive director of the Christian Medical Association; and Thomas Trask, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God.

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