From Prison, Phoenix Goddess Temple Founder Vows to Keep Fighting for Religious Freedom

[rug]

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2016 AT 5:31 A.M.
BY MIRIAM WASSER

In commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the massive police raid on the Phoenix Goddess Temple, founder Tracy Elise has delivered a special recorded message to her supporters from Perryville Women's Prison, where she's serving a 4.5-year sentence for an array of prostitution-related charges.

"It may appear to everyone that we have lost our case, but that's not true," she begins, citing the symbolic win of getting her story, and the temple's, into the official court record.

"We were denied any kind of religious defense, and from the very beginning we were subjected to extreme conservative Christian political biases. We really were put into a corner," she goes on, likening the way state and local authorities treated the men and women who worked in the temple (called practitioners) to the women accused of being witches in Salem, Massachusetts, during the 1600s.

"Many tricks, many prosecutorial tricks, were used against us," she says. "And we were facing over 2,000 years of prejudice against female clergy, against the idea that the sexuality of the human body is an altar, a temple for the spirit."

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/from-prison-phoenix-goddess-temple-founder-vows-to-keep-fighting-for-religious-freedom-8632732

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/phoenix-goddess-temples-sacred-sexuality-is-more-like-new-age-prostitution-6447544

[struggle4progress]

1. ... Phoenix .. undercover agents .. learned that temple workers were required to take classes

on performing sex acts and had a handbook detailing how much various sessions would cost ...

Phoenix Goddess Temple Priestess Tracy Elise Heads to Prison
FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016 AT 5:02 A.M
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/phoenix-goddess-temple-priestess-tracy-elise-heads-to-prison-8306220

[cleanhippie]

2. So they worship the flesh. So do Catholics.

[struggle4progress]

3. She was not on trial for worship of the flesh:

... following a 48-day trial in which Elise represented herself, a jury found her guilty of 22 counts of prostitution, illegal control of an enterprise, money laundering, conspiracy, and related charges ...
Phoenix Goddess Temple Priestess Tracy Elise Heads to Prison
FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016 AT 5:02 A.M.

[struggle4progress]

4. Woman who founded 'Goddess Temple' sentenced to prison

Posted: May 19, 2016 1:28 PM EDT
Updated: May 19, 2016 5:02 PM EDT

... News reports about the temple described employees, known as “Goddesses,” offering various sexual acts in exchange for monetary donations ranging from $204 to $650. The temple advertised these services on backpage.com, a website frequently used to facilitate acts of prostitution. Customers, known as “seekers” in the jargon used by the temple, could make appointments by phone with specific temple “practitioners” or “healers,” who would perform different sex acts in exchange for a donation to the temple ... Customers who did not leave the required donation were not allowed to return to the temple ...

http://www.azfamily.com/story/32017063/woman-who-founded-goddess-temple-sentenced

[struggle4progress]

5. A Notorious Sex Temple and Its Ruling Pimp Priestess

by Jim Walsh
MAY 12 2016

During Tracy Elise's four-month trial she called upon a porn star .. and a self-proclaimed pimp as witnesses to prove that her profession .. was religious, not financial, in nature, but an Arizona jury didn't buy it ...

... Elise had hoped that her constitutional right to freedom of religion would protect her from conviction ...

Prosecutors argued that while Elise was welcome to practice as much sacred sexual healing as she liked, a six-month-long police investigation demonstrated that she had also violated Arizona's prostitution laws when her temple accepted donations in exchange for sex acts ...

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/true-erotic-crime-story-a-notorious-sex-temple-and-its-ruling-pimp-priestess

[nil desperandum]

6. Now that's funny shit...

she managed to combine the two oldest professions into one amalgamation of corruption.

So much for free enterprise.

[brooklynite]

7. "Many tricks, many prosecutorial tricks, were used against us..."

Freudian?

[rug]

8. Her own tricks could not get her off.