Especially for Parents
News and Commentary by Sharon Secor
November 2003
Thankful and Encouraged, With A Firm Focus On The Future
For those of us concerned with the sorrowful state of our nation’s entertainment media and the explosion of pornography in our communities and on the Internet, we have a much to be thankful for. We have seen, on many levels, acknowledgment of and even real progress towards our goals.
The United States Justice Department is once again initiating obscenity prosecutions against large-scale commercial distributors of hardcore pornography. In August, the U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh initiated the first obscenity case involving a Los Angeles-based pornographer in more than a decade. Los Angeles is the porn “capital” of the nation and of the world. In September 2003, the U.S. Attorney in San Antonio also initiated a RICO-obscenity case against a pornographer with “sex shops” in several states. According to news reports, an additional indictment with additional defendants is expected.
Justice Department spokespersons have also stated publicly and repeatedly that many other obscenity investigations are underway and that additional obscenity prosecutions against large-scale commercial distributors of hardcore pornography will be forthcoming. Under Attorney General Janet Reno’s leadership (1993 through 2000), the Department’s Child Exploitation & Obscenity Section turned a virtual blind eye to commercialized obscenity; and, as a result, the hardcore porn racket boomed.
Despite chaotic world events, such as the war on terror, and the need to improve our own economy, President George W. Bush has demonstrated that pornography and the safety of our children is a priority for his administration. This year, on October 25, the President issued a Proclamation declaring October 26 through November 1, 2003, as Protection From Pornography Week. Acknowledging the destructive effects of pornography on both society as a whole and the family unit, he encouraged all segments of our society “to observe this week with appropriate programs and activities.” The Proclamation was issued in response to a letter prepared by Morality in Media and signed by 120 national and state leaders, asking the President to speak out against the obscenity problem.
It is not just with words that the president makes his concern known. Earlier this year, on April 30, President Bush signed the PROTECT Act of 2003, a welcome and strong statement by our president. A Department of Justice fact sheet of the same date provides the details of this important legislation.
Among other purposes, the PROTECT Act attempts to plug the gaping hole in legal protections against sexual exploitation of children left by the Supreme Court decision of April 16, 2002, which invalidated the federal law aimed at computer generated child pornography (“pseudo child porn”). Other provisions provide more severe penalties for those who sexually exploit children. For example, the penalty for a first offense of using a child to produce child pornography is now to 15 to 30 years, and the penalty for offenders who commit two serious sexual abuse offenses against a child is now life imprisonment.
The PROTECT Act also reduces the authority of judges in sexual exploitation of children cases to grant prison sentences that are less than the Sentencing Guidelines state. In addition, sex offenders can now be supervised for life, if need be, after release from prison. Legal penalties for “sexual tourism,” or the act of traveling to another country to engage children for sexual purposes have been increased. The AMBER ALERT Program has been expanded and further supported with federal funding.
In July 2003, the Department of Homeland Security (under the direction of Secretary Tom Ridge) set Operation Predator into motion. This program is directed at protecting children from such dangers as traffickers, pornographers and those who use the Internet to lure children into danger. The efforts associated with this program take place both nationally and internationally.
Congress is also acting on the behalf of the vast majority of Americans who want obscenity laws enforced. House Concurrent Resolution 298 (drafted by Morality in Media attorneys), introduced on October 8, 2003 by John Sullivan (OK-R) and 36 other Representatives, and Senate Concurrent Resolution 77, an identical companion bill introduced on October 28, 2003 by Senator Jeff Sessions (AL-R), both “express the sense of Congress that the federal obscenity laws should be vigorously enforced throughout the United States.”
Progress has not been limited to the executive and legislative spheres. We’ve seen major corporations rethink their advertising strategies. According to recent reports by the Parents Television Council and OneMillionMoms.com, during a period of eight weeks more than 43 advertisers withdrew their commercials from the graphic and vulgar television program Nip/Tuck. Revlon, Orkin, Carfax, Capital One, Gateway, Progressive Insurance and Cingular Wireless are among those who will no longer support Nip/Tuck with their advertising dollars. The television program Paradise Hotel lost such major advertisers as McDonalds, Burger King and Jergens. Keen Eddie, in which one episode portrayed a prostitute being hired to perform a sex act on a horse, and Lucky are among other television programs that have felt the pressure to adjust their content to reflect community standards.
Broadcast networks have also taken notice. Despite all the media hype that heralded the arrival of Coupling and Skin, programs that attracted attention due to their overtly sexual content, both programs were canceled. Skin, broadcast by the FOX network, was a series set in L.A. that used a conflict between a hardcore pornographer—portrayed as the good guy—and a prosecutor charged with enforcing child porn and obscenity laws as a backdrop. It survived only three weeks because of poor ratings.
Coupling, an NBC offering based on a vulgar and sexually explicit British program, was also cancelled because of poor ratings. It seems that viewers just were not interested in the sexual escapades that made up the main plot line of what NBC Entertainment Chief Jeff Zucker referred to as “NBC’s biggest mistake of the season,” according to the Parents Television Council.
Mistakes, indeed. In a November 7, 2003, article, The Man Who Isn’t There, Christian Science Monitor staff writer Gloria Goodale wrote about television networks’ concern at the loss of the young male demographic—exactly the type of viewer that it was hoped such programs as Skin and Coupling would attract. Despite broadcasters’ efforts at capturing this group of viewers, they “appear to be deserting their television sets in record numbers,” according to Goodale.
These changes, from Congress to corporate advertisers to television networks, are the direct result of concerned people making their opinions known. When we interact with our political representatives through letters, petitions and telephone calls, they know what we expect of them. Advertisers withdrew funding from offensive programming because thousands of customers and potential customers protested their support of these programs. Several organizations, including the American Family Association, Morality in Media and Parents Television Council, are putting pressure on the Federal Communications Commission to enforce the broadcast indecency law against network television programming.
Despite the progress, however, the battle against cultural decline has just begun. For example, this year’s Abercrombie & Fitch Christmas catalogue is so disgusting – with its sections on group sex and masturbation – that “former astronaut Kathryn Sullivan quit A&F’s board of directors after being shown a copy,” according to a November 13, 2003, report from staff writer Ruth Sheehan of the Raleigh, NC, News & Observer. A November 6, 2003, episode of Without a Trace, a CBS program, portrayed teens participating in group sex and substance abuse. Oprah, which often runs in an after school time slot and has many teen and pre-teen viewers, recently aired pole dancing lessons and tantric sex tips. According to an article by David Amsden, “Not Tonight, Honey,” published in the October 20 issue of New York, Internet porn is corrupting the way “a generation of young men view women.”
So, while we should be thankful and encouraged by this year’s developments, we must also prepare ourselves for the battles that lay ahead, never forgetting what our combined efforts can accomplish.