McManus - Ethics & Religion
May 21, 2008
Column #1,395
Press Indifferent To Porn's Harm
by Mike McManus
Imagine that 19 pro-family and pro-decency groups such as the Family
Research Council, Concerned Women for America and Focus on the Family
called a press conference to criticize the Bush Administration.
Wouldn't every network, news magazine and major newspaper cover the
event?
No. None showed up at the National Press Club on Monday.
Why? The criticism of Bush was over his failure "to vigorously enforce
federal obscenity laws." YAWN.
What could the press have covered? How about this blistering criticism
of Bush's Justice Department by Robert Peters, President of Morality in
Media, the event's organizer:
"In 2002 we created a website, www.obscenitycrimes.org, to give citizens
a way to report violations of federal Internet obscenity laws. Before
doing so, we discussed it with Justice Department, and they said,
"Great!" By February, 2008, 70,000 citizen complaints were filed.
"After six years and 70,000 complaints, the Justice Department has NOT
ACTED ON A SINGLE COMPLAINT," asserted Peters.
Janet Shaw Crouse, of Concerned Women for America, lamented: "Obscenity
is not taken seriously even by those legally charged with prosecuting
offenders. So while the Justice Department is not looking, our homes are
being invaded by...blatantly obscene so-called `entertainment.'
"Small seedlings of the obscene can grow into giant sequoias of criminal
sex networks. Once the predator sees someone as a mere object - instead
of a person worthy of respect and dignity - that person can be used, and
abused, for the personal satisfaction of the predator; then, it is a
very easy step to becoming a pimp and using that person as a commercial
sexual commodity."
She cited FBI research of jailed sex offenders who possessed child
pornography, 85 percent admitted to abusing children. She added,
"Obscenity is also used to ensnare women and girls into prostitution and
sex trafficking. So called `modeling agencies' or `modeling agents' take
nude photos of girls and women and then threaten them with the exposing
these photos if they are unwilling to prostitute themselves."
Pornography also has an horrific debasing impact on the culture. There
are Academy-Award winning songs like "It's Hard Out Here for a
Pimp." Chicago and Miami now have the "Pimp's Ball," a spectacular event
for pimps and their tattooed whores arriving in gaudy stretch limos.
Pop Star and Beyonce have a line of CHILDREN'S clothing that looks like
"pedophilia chic," says Crouse.
The problem goes much deeper. At a 2003 meeting of the American Academy
of Matrimonial Lawyers, two-thirds of 350 divorce lawyers acknowledged
that online porn contributed to MORE THAN HALF of divorces they handled.
To put it bluntly, millions of men are masturbating to pictures of
18-year-olds having sex rather than having real sex with their
40-year-old wife. One of the Ten Commandments is "Thou shalt not commit
adultery." How is this not adultery?
As President of Marriage Savers, I was invited to speak to the
non-existent press. I noted that I covered the meetings of the 1986
Attorney General's Commission on Pornography which voted at its next to
last meeting, 5-4, that hard core obscenity was "not harmful." I was
stunned, and decided to publish the names and addresses of the
"libertarians" who alleged it was harmless.
Dr. Park Dietz of the Un. of Virginia read a dozen letters, which asked
the Commission "do something," often because hard core pornography
destroyed a marriage. He said he was also moved by the law enforcement
people "who were almost unanimous in citing a link between porn and
crime." He switched his vote, as did four liberals, making the
Commission unanimous.
However, Attorney General Meese ignored his own report! In my
Introduction to a commercially published Report, I wrote, "As of August
(1986) both Attorney General Meese and the President have shied away
from publicly endorsing the document."
However, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America and others
bought the book at a discount and distributed 70,000 copies. Those
readers put pressure on Meese and he began to enforce the law. Major
pornographers were put in jail and their bank accounts seized! That
continued for 6 years until Clinton became president. He halted
enforcement.
And Bush, WHO PROMISED ENFORCEMENT - RENEGED WHEN ELECTED.
Therefore, I recommend that the Presidential candidates and all
candidates for Congress be asked if they'd support creation of a new
Obscenity Commission which can document the harm, and call for specific
reforms in a new Report.
The last Report noted, for example, that rapists are 15 times as likely
as non-offenders to have had exposure to hard core pornography between
ages 6-10. A study of 411 sex offenders revealed "a staggering number of
victims," of 581 offenses with 336 victims EACH.
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