You may have heard about a prominent Columbia attorney accused of killing the manager of a local strip club. His case is before the court as I write this article. This is significant for two reasons: Attorneys don’t usually put themselves in a position to be charged with murder, and it sheds light into the behind-the-scenes darkness of adult nightclubs.
Joe MackAlthough municipalities can regulate where these businesses are located, South Carolina law does not ban nude dancing. We might like to think of our state as small, family-oriented and insulated from the debauchery that infects cosmopolitan areas such as Atlanta, Chicago or New York, but strip clubs are everywhere. And where there are public places that encourage gratuitous sexual display, adverse effects will always follow.
Rep. Scott Talley, Anderson Mill Baptist Church, took a bold stand recently to introduce a bill in the South Carolina House relating to adult-themed businesses. H. 3679 states that the purpose of the bill is to “promote the health, safety, and general welfare of the people of the State by establishing reasonable regulations to prevent the deleterious secondary effects of adult businesses.” Unfortunately, his bill is stranded in the House Judiciary Committee – probably until next year.
Rep. Talley points out that some of the harmful residual effects of adult nightlife include, but are not limited to, lewdness, public indecency, prostitution, potential spread of disease, illicit drug use and drug trafficking, personal and property crimes, and sexual assault and exploitation. The bill says that this list of activities “constitutes a harm which the State has a substantial governmental interest in preventing and abating.”
Rep. Talley has a solid record for working to strengthen families through legislation that encourages a high standard of personal social and moral ethics. I agree with him that there needs to be legislation regulating adult-themed businesses in the Palmetto State. We need to find a way to introduce individuals employed in this business to Christ. We need to pray that men will be convicted to honor their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters by maintaining a daily ritual of prayer and a consciousness for purity and righteousness.
Pray that God’s light will break this grip of darkness in your community and across our state.