Mr. Hertzberg continued, "I don't consider myself a prude and I don't think pornography is evil. But I am a parent, and I shudder to think of the impact these images would have on my children, ages nine and seven, had they been near the PC when this site downloaded."
Morality in Media has sent the following letter to the editor in reply to Mr. Hertzberg's essay.
To the Editor:
I want to commend Robert Hertzberg for his support of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) in his editorial in the December 1, 1999 issue of Internet World.
In his editorial Mr. Hertzberg related how his Internet browser was captured, without warning, by a pornographic web site that displayed "as graphic a representation of sex as you could have found in the sleaziest adult bookstore in the world."
Mr. Hertzberg might be surprised to learn that the transmission of obscene material over the internet to adults, such as himself, is a felony with or without COPA (see e.g. United States v. Thomas, U.S. Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit, June 1997; defendant convicted of several counts of distributing obscenity by computer bulletin board in violation of section 1465, title 18, United States Code; sentenced to 37 months in prison).
Unfortunately such prosecutions have become rare. President Clinton has not enforced obscenity laws [see our Clinton Porn Legacy page], as did his predecessors Presidents Reagan and Bush. That is an important reason why pornography has become almost impossible to avoid on the internet.
But there is another reason, at least as important. In his editorial, Robert Hertzberg described his reaction to the sudden, unwanted appearance of hardcore pornography:
I don't consider myself a prude and I don't think pornography is evil. But I am a parent, and I shudder to think of the impact these images would have on my own children, ages nine and seven, had they been near the PC when this site downloaded.Part of the tragedy of our age is that many of us can read the above quote and fail to see the glaring contradiction.
Why is Mr. Hertzberg so afraid of his children seeing the images that appeared, uninvited, on his computer screen? He is not a prude. He does not believe pornography is evil. I believe Mr. Hertzberg would have some difficulty giving a logical answer.
Alas, if our society continues to be seduced by the idea that pornography is not evil, Mr. Hertzberg and the rest of us will be powerless to protect our children. The fact is, pornography is evil.
In the 1970 "Hill-Link" Minority Report of the Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (appointed by President Johnson in 1968), Morality in Media founder, Father Morton A. Hill, S.J. and Dr. Winfrey C. Link, framed the issue of public morality this way:
Our recommendations are squarely based on the concept that the State has, as the Supreme Court says, a right to enact obscenity legislation based on the "social interest in morality." There is a distinction that should be made between individual morality and the level of general morality which the state needs to protect.I suggest to Mr. Hertzberg that his children, all children, all society have an interest in maintaining a minimum level of public morality through the enforcement of obscenity laws. And to the question he posed in his editorial -- what to do about this problem -- the answer is simple. Call Attorney General Reno and demand that she begin enforcing the law.A person's beliefs and practices depend on what he relies on for an authority as to what is right and best. As children grow up, they come under various authorities' influences: parents, relatives, friends, teachers, writers, actors, celebrities, clergymen and a host of others. They are also influenced in various ways by other forces of good and evil.
At every point in life a person has a certain moral character. It is the sum total of what he then believes and practices in the area of right and wrong. This overall moral character is constantly changing under the interplay of the aforementioned influences. Thus if a person accepts higher standards, his moral character improves; if he accepts lower standards, his moral character deteriorates.
Not only does every individual reflect a certain moral character, but so does every group of individuals, a club, a city, a state, or even a nation -- the essence of which is determined by a general consensus of individual standards. It is, stated another way, the distillation of all the individual moralities or the level of morality generally. It is this level, this distillation, this average, this essence, which the state has an interest in protecting. (The Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, pp. 419-420, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970).
For those who would like to learn more about the obscenity issue, please visit our web site at www.moralityinmedia.org.