About Morality in Media

475 Riverside Drive, Suite 239
New York, NY 10115
Phone: 1-212-870-3222    Fax: 1-212-870-2765
E-mail: mim@moralityinmedia.org

MORALITY IN MEDIA, INC is a national, not-for-profit organization established in 1962 to combat obscenity and uphold decency standards in the media. It maintains the National Obscenity Law Center, a clearinghouse of legal materials on obscenity law, and conducts public information programs to educate and involve concerned citizens.

Robert W. Peters President of Morality in Media, Inc.

Robert W. Peters is president of Morality in Media, Inc., a nonprofit organization founded in New York City in 1962 to combat obscenity and uphold standards of decency in the media.

During his 14 years as president, Mr. Peters has been a speaker and lecturer at numerous conferences, debates, seminars and other events sponsored by pro-family and religious organizations, colleges and law schools, and professional societies. He has written articles for various publications and has been interviewed by local, national and international print media, including newspapers such as: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Chicago Tribune, The Dallas Morning News, Detroit Free Press, Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, The New York Times, New York’s Daily News and Newsday, New York Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post and USA Today.

Mr. Peters has also appeared on numerous television shows such as: CNN’s “Larry King Live” and CNN Headline News' "Glen Beck;" Fox News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes” and “The O'Reilly Factor”; MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” and “Scarborough Country;” PBS’ “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer”; ABC Evening News and “PrimeTime”; CBS Evening News and “48 Hours”; and NBC Nightly News and “Today” show; and been interviewed on hundreds of local and national radio programs and by nationally syndicated radio news networks.

Mr. Peters is the author of “It Will Take more than Parental use of Filtering Software to Protect Children from Pornography on the Internet” (31 N.Y. University School of Law Review of Law & Social Change 829, 2007); “Once Again, U.S. Supreme Court Thinks It Knows Better Than Congress” (Spring 2005 issue of NEXUS: A Journal of Opinion, Chapman University School of Law); "'Marketplace of Ideas' or Anarchy: What Will Cyberspace Become?" (Spring 2000 issue of the Mercer Law Review); and "Information Superhighway or Technological Sewer: What Will It Be?" (December 1994 issue of the Federal Communications Law Journal).

A graduate of New York University School of Law, Mr. Peters joined Morality in Media in 1985 as a staff attorney and in two years was named Assistant Director of the National Obscenity Law Center, a project of Morality in Media that serves as a clearinghouse in obscenity law. He was appointed President of Morality in Media in 1992.

Mr. Peters has drafted state and local obscenity and related laws and testified before state and local legislative bodies. He has prepared official Comments to the FCC on the subjects of broadcast indecency and the TV ratings and testified at a public hearing of the FCC on the subject of TV violence. Mr. Peters has also authored amicus curiae briefs for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court in support of federal Laws regulating indecent material on broadcast and cable TV and by means of telephone ("dial-a-porn") and computer.

Mr. Peters has testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in support of the Pornography Victims Compensation Act, and in 1992 Congress enacted legislation, patterned in part after a proposal submitted by Mr. Peters, to address the problem of indecent programming on cable TV leased access channels. In June 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 1992 law. In 2003, the U.S. Senate enacted Senate Concurrent Resolution 77, which Mr. Peters proposed and drafted. Resolution 77 expresses the will of Congress that “the Federal obscenity laws should be vigorously enforced throughout the United States.”

Mr. Peters was born in LaSalle, Illinois in 1949 and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1971. While at Dartmouth, he co-captained Dartmouth's 1970 undefeated football team and also spent a semester teaching at a Catholic elementary and high school that served Clarksdale, Mississippi’s black community. He graduated from New York University School of Law in 1975 and was admitted to the New York Bar in 1976. Following law school, Mr. Peters spent a year representing indigent tenants in Manhattan’s landlord-tenant court and later worked in a non-legal capacity with a New York City nonprofit organization to curb the decline in morality. For this work, he received an Effective Citizenship Award from John Cardinal O'Connor for translating "concern for the welfare of children into effective action on their behalf."

Paul J. McGeady, Director of Morality in Media's National Obscenity Law Center from 1979 to 2006.

NEW YORK (Nov. 3, 2006) - Morality in Media issued the following statement regarding the passing of Paul J. McGeady, Esq., who served as the organization’s General Counsel and Director of its National Obscenity Law Center from 1979 to 2006.

Paul J. McGeady, a decorated Army Air Force veteran of World War II, 1948 graduate of Fordham Law School, member of the New York bar since 1949, member of New York City Mayor Robert Wagner’s Citizens Anti-Pornography Commission in 1965, Director of Morality in Media’s National Obscenity Law Center from 1979 to 2006, and nationally recognized expert on obscenity and indecency law, died Tuesday. In New Jersey, his family announced his death was due to a recent fall at his home resulting in a coma and fatal hemorrhaging. He was 86.

Paul McGeady joined the staff of Morality in Media in 1979 as General Counsel and as Director of its National Obscenity Law Center (www.moralityinmedia.org/nolc), a clearinghouse of information on obscenity and related law, utilized by prosecutors, law enforcement agencies, legislators and others concerned about the explosive growth of pornography. Under his direction, the Law Center published the National Obscenity Law Reporter, a three-volume treatise on obscenity law, with obscenity cases dating from 1800.

Paul McGeady’s hard work, sense of justice, and guidance were instrumental in support of what former Chief Justice Earl Warren described in a 1964 obscenity case as, “the right of the Nation and of the States to maintain a decent society.”

He was a member and principal architect of the Report of the Mayor’s Citizens Anti-Pornography Commission, having been appointed to the post in 1964 by NYC Mayor Robert Wagner. He wrote the legal sections and legislative recommendations for the Hill-Link Minority Report, which also appeared in the 1970 Final Report of President Johnson’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. In 1984, at his suggestion, obscenity was added as a predicate crime to the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization law. In 1986, he testified in Chicago before the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography. He prepared model anti-pornography laws, drafted amendments to ganti-pornography laws, and authored amicus curiae briefs in support of these laws.

Paul McGeady was also a champion for enforcement of the broadcast indecency law and a proponent of its application to cable and satellite TV and other media.

Robert Peters, President of Morality in Media, said, “It has been my privilege to work with Paul for 20 years. His purpose, diligence, dedication, patience, tenacity, readiness to sacrifice, faithfulness, humility, compassion, integrity and piety were an example to us all.”

Bruce Taylor, a former Senior Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, said, “Paul assisted me and most prosecutors I knew, which was almost all who did obscenity cases in state and federal courts, at least since the cases started after Miller v. California in 1973. He changed history, and we are the beneficiaries of his contributions to the legal and public debates about obscenity, pornography, and the First Amendment.”

MIM's Background, Mission, Program and Accomplishments
Where we've been and what we have accomplished since Father Hill founded MIM in 1962, and the values that guide us.

About Father Morton A. Hill, Founder of Morality in Media
"There are those who scoff at morality as alien to the liberties of a free people. Fr. Hill saw it otherwise and his vision carried the wisdom of that irreplaceable human dignity nourished in the integrity of family life, where the human life power is honored and served in an ambience of disciplined and generous love.... He saw clearly that morality was not merely private but also public a matter of community standards and controls over the marketplace, the promotion of a social environment conducive to decency in personal and family life. He started as one small voice in an urban setting. With unswerving determination and by ceaseless labor, his voice grew to national resonance. He never sought nor did he get easy success in his unselfish campaign. Yet he gradually won the respect and support of thousands." — Fr. PAUL MURPHY, SJ

Ordering MIM Publications
Find out about the various publications we offer to the public and how to order them.

Other Resources
MIM's page of links to other organizations and websites with useful information for victims of pornography, movie reviews, internet service providers and screening software.

Morality in Media Scrapbook
A pictoral history of MIM.

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