NEWS RELEASE from MORALITY IN MEDIA, Inc.
NEW YORK (1 December 2003) – Robert W. Peters, President of Morality in Media, made the following statement in response to the November 22 passage, by unanimous consent, of Senate Concurrent Resolution 77:
“Every American concerned about the floodtide of hardcore pornography pouring into our communities, homes and children’s minds, especially through the Internet, should be heartened by the passage of S.Con.Res.77, which expresses the “sense of Congress that Federal obscenity laws should be vigorously enforced throughout the United States.”
“First and foremost, S.Con.Res.77 will help dispel the notion that obscene materials (“hardcore pornography”) no longer violate contemporary community standards of decency in the United States. The lie that obscenity has become as mainstream and acceptable as apple pie is a ‘siren song’ that producers and distributors of hardcore pornography and their defenders love to sing.
“But if hardcore pornography really were as acceptable as apple pie, then the average American would no longer be offended by the public portrayal of hardcore pornographic material that depicts, among other things bestiality, bondage, ‘domination’ (humiliation & degradation), gangbangs, ‘golden showers’ (urine), incest, marital infidelity, prostitution, rape (including statutory rape), ‘rough sex’ (strangulation and slapping), ‘scat’ (feces), ‘school girls’ (grade school through college), sexual murders, teen promiscuity, torture, and unsafe sex galore.
“At Morality in Media, we think that the large majority of the American people are offended by the distribution of hardcore pornography and, given a choice, would prefer to live and raise children in a decent society-rather than in a society shaped by hardcore pornographers.
“S.Con.Res.77 will also help dispel the notion that obscenity is something that must be tolerated if the American people are to preserve their cherished First Amendment freedoms of speech and press. As the Supreme Court wrote in its landmark obscenity case, Miller v. California:
‘[T]o equate the free and robust exchange of ideas and political debate with commercial exploitation of obscene material demeans the grand conception of the First Amendment and its high purposes in the historic struggle for freedom.’Â Miller, 413 U.S. at 34.
MORALITY IN MEDIA is a national nonprofit organization working through constitutional means to curb traffic in obscenity and to uphold standards of decency in the media. MIM operates the ObscenityCrimes.org Web site, where citizens can report possible violations of federal Internet obscenity laws to Federal prosecutors.
Author:Â MIM Â 12/01/2003