There is nothing as unconvincing, as unbelievable as the assumption that a drug user, a sex worker, a gambler, or a drinker is a bad guy who lies or steals. In truth, you know nothing about a person when you learn they take drugs or do sex for money.

These falsehoods are pure prejudice. It is unreasonable and contrary to fact to assume you know something about a person’s character when you find out that they performed certain acts. Such conclusions are specious. After World War II, it became impossible to believe that a black or brown person was a thief or a liar, even though such views were common. These were prejudices, and thousands of soldiers, factory workers building airplanes and tanks during World War II demonstrated that skin color told us nothing about a person’s character. What we learned is that assuming the worst produced false conclusions.

Before drawing a conclusion about a person’s character, the courts, the employers, and the neighbors had to know the facts. Opinion leaders in the United States worked hard to bring this truth to the public. Stars like Jackie Robinson were “most valuable players;” the dignified opera singer Marian Anderson made whites look foolish when they tried to stop her from singing at the Daughters of American Revolution Constitution Hall. Then the decisive change: desegregation of the schools.

Clearly, the recognition of black and brown achievements didn’t end prejudice or stop nasty people from hostile acts, but anyone found to be a racist or making false accusations faced public shame. Many did not give up their prejudices, but they now put their good name at risk. For example, a woman in New York City falsely threatened a black man with a false accusation of rape and then lost her job.

At one time, the black man faced arrest and trial for a similarly flimsy accusation.

It is the contention of this writer that just because you learn someone traded their body for money, gambled, watched porn, or drinks every night, you know nothing about their character. In big cities, the stories are legion about women who trick with men and use the money to pay their rent and care for their children. Carl Hart, a Columbia University professor, insists his habitual use of heroin has not stopped him from meeting his professional responsibilities and social obligations. Anyone who knows drug users realizes many are plumbers, bankers, and lawyers who work every day and enjoy the respect of their peers. Hart, who has spent a lifetime studying drug use, insists that 70% of users of illegal drugs are fully functional.

Prejudice in the form of irrational laws and legal surveillance pose a far greater risk to these people than the drugs they consumed or the persons they tricked with. Gamblers in recent decades have found relief from laws making their activities illegal. It became obvious that “Johnny’s father” or a baseball fan are not criminals just because they liked to bet. The reason for these legal changes is significant. Gamblers were people everybody knew. They didn’t live secret lives and efforts to claim their activities were immoral became preposterous.

Queers faced similar damnation, especially in the dark years after World War II. The federal government fired them on the false grounds that they were security risks. After his dismissal, Frank Kameny, an astronomer, went to court, and found friends to picket against this clear violation of his rights. Homosexuals were common in every large city and have been throughout history. Despite the disparaging attitudes, only rarely were people alarmed by what they considered a common vice. When the Stonewall Riots demonstrated the homosexuals’ anger at the legal hostility imposed on them; city after city created safe spaces for this new political force.

A New York court stopped police entrapment by reaching the obvious conclusion that the undercover officer was not surprised or harmed when a gay man invited them back to their home. The sage judges remarked, “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” With this homespun wisdom, the court deprived the police of their chief weapon for entrapping gay men. A few years later, the state’s highest court resolved the issue with the declaration that men had the right to love men and women the right to love women. Same-sex sex became legal in New York, and a few years later the Supreme Court made that the law of the land.

Clients and sex workers and consumers of drugs should pay attention to this history lesson. They are good people and there is no reason to be scared of their habits. In fact, use the word “sex surrogate” and sex workers become angels of mercy and admired. We forget that often clients are people too old, too fat, too callous, or ashamed of their sexual peculiarities to go out on dates. The sex worker is a performer, satisfying the fantasies of their customers. There is nothing remotely criminal about these practices.

Freedom Democrats are dedicated to making the public aware that fear rather than reason, prejudice rather than a willingness to say “so what?” about how other people live their lives is the major obstacle to reform. If legal, sex workers can live lives of respectability, drug users will have access to drugs manufactured with their safety in mind. Doctors can treat patients without the interference of foolish laws.

Freedom Democrats will unite in the common purpose of defying moral rigidity, which thinks it can make a hard-and-fast rule that taking drugs, selling sex, or watching porn is a moral failing. Freedom Democrats will give despised groups their full legal rights in a free country.