Many people share our concerns, Laws in Place, What are we missing?

What an opportunity and experience we had to spend Mon. May 19 in Washington D.C. We especially appreciate the work and efforts of the event organizers: Brad Curl, President of Athletes & Business for Kids and Robert Peters, President of Morality in Media. The USA is an amazing place where we can gather and express our opinions, openly protest the actions of a government agency, and meet with (and vote for) the leaders of this nation who make the laws and appropriate government revenues.

I was reminded of a few important things at this conference.

We are not alone

• ------Far from it! There were more than 15 presenters who spoke at the conference. Each is long dedicated to this cause and represented organizations that include many, many people across the nation. (See list of links to many of those organizations on this page)
• Additionally, ". . .widespread availability of obscene materials is not proof of community acceptance. According to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive in April 2008, 75% of adult Americans said they would support the next President were he or she to 'do all in his or her constitutional power to ensure that federal obscenity laws are enforced vigorously against commercial distributors of hardcore pornography.'"- Morality in Media
• There is a demand and a monetary reward for decent media. "In 2008, 45% of the movies released in theaters were aimed at families. Those family films grossed an average 200% better than movies aimed at the adult marketplace. In 2005, only two of the top 20 grossing movies was R-rated." MovieGuide.org- Ted Baehr, President, Christian Film & TV Commission
  

The Laws are in place

• Obscenity and pornography are not upheld by the first ammendment of our constitution. The Supreme Court has repeatedly confirmed this. Just last Monday, May 19, in the Supreme Court Case, US vs Williams, Justice Scalia explained in his majority opinion, "We have long held that obscene speech—sexually explicit material that violates fundamental notions of decency—is not protected by the First Amendment."

What is missing?

• The few groups that control the media seem to have their own agenda, despite "popular" disapproval. “He who controls the media controls the culture.”- Dr. Ted Baehr

Educate yourself, your friends, associates, fellow church-members on the urgent, addictive, and devastating effects of obscenity in culture.

• Make your voice known. Let your dollars speak. Don't support things that do not uphold your standards of decency and let the company know why you won't pay for that product or service.
• Contact your county and state attorney general and ask them to enforce decency laws and to appeal to the federal government to do the same.
• Get involved, make the time and effort to protect your children, their friends, your school, and community from harmful obscenity in the media and activites they participate in.
• Pray for our community and our nation

The fight is on!

I just wanted to share a few statements from some of the speakers at the seminar:

• "In a recent report, it was concluded that Playgirl, Playboy, and Penthouse magazines are not considered sexually explicit material." - Tiffany, Founder of Girls Against Porn
  
• Out of 70,000 obscenity cases that have been reported in the last 3 months, not 1 has been prosecuted by the DOJ - Department of Justice.


• "If we don't prosecute adult pornographers, we create child pornography." - Pat Trueman, former Chief, U.S. Justice Department’s Child Exploitation & Obscenity Section


• "Sexual entrepreneuers are going after our children - stores like Abercrombie & Fitch and Calvin Klein have toned down their ads." - Bill Johnson, Founder of American Decency


• "Every second more than $3000 is spent on porn and every 39 seconds a porn video is made." - Dr. Janice Crouse, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Beverly LaHaye Institute


• "Everyday there are 23 - 60 million pornography sites viewed on the internet." - Maurine Proctor, Founder of Family Leader Network



• "80% of pornography production comes from the United States of America. I am embarrassed to say that I live in this country where the filth is being distributed." Learn about the proposed CP80 resolution for a cleaner internet http://www.cp80.org/ - Ralph Yarro, Founder of CP80



• "A librarian was fired for calling the police when she found a man downloading porn off a computer in her library. She worked at an elementary school and she was told she should've given the man a warning instead of calling the police." - Sarah Seitz, Esq. Liberty Council

Washington DC Conference

I can definitely say, I have never been a part of something like this conference before.  

We were meeting with people who have given their lives in the thankless job of fighting pornography.  But times have changed, and now the leadership of the pro-decency movement needs to understand clearly the enemy we are fighting. It is the unsolicited, unwanted porn that is shot purposefully into my home no matter my best efforts at blocking it.  The porn industry does all they can to target my children and hook them into the deadly trap of porn addiction.  

This addiction makes this more than an issue of  morality, it is now a mental health issue that is deadly and destructive to addicts and those around them.

To fight the huge dollars of the porn industry, it is going to take all of us, every color, gender, political party, and religion to get focused on a viable solution that will help stop the unwanted porn from invading my home.

At this conference, I sitting right around me was a university professor from California, an African-American woman, a hasidic jewish rabbi, a retired television executive, a mom, a dad. All of us were there for different reasons, but we all wanted to somehow let people know that what is happening out there isn't ok with us.  And that we must find some solutions to curb this plague.

One man that presented, Ralph Yarro, spoke about a great solution that can stop unwanted porn from coming into my home and give our society a fighting chance.   Very simply said, he proposes national  legislation that would create one internet that would be a family friendly version  and leave the other internet as it is now.  You could choose which would come into your home.  It is technically possible in a surprisingly easy way.  We are working with him and Senator Jon Kyl (one of the most outstanding senators ever) to get this legislation introduced. But it will take huge support from the people.  Find out about this by checking out www.cp80.org.  The more support politicians feel on this issue, the easier it is to move forward.

The other idea that came from this conference that I fully support is having a presidential commission or task force on obscenity.  This existed when Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush were the presidents, but does not exist now.   The President of the United States needs to know the effect that obscenity is having on the country and what he can do to improve the situation. It would send a message out to everyone that this issue is a priority.

 

Anti-Porn/ Pro-Decency Conference

Several of us just returned from Washington D.C. We heard about a conference that we wanted to attend, get information and action items, and bring them back to Arizona. We rubbed shoulders with Morality In Media, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women of America and many more groups. Several people spoke on the devastating effects of pornography and there were some good ideas. Then we participated in a peaceful demonstration in front of the Department of Justice. They are responsible to for not prosecuting the obscenity laws. We wanted to send a message to them that they need to start doing this. Their excuse is lack of support from the President, Attorney General, man power and money. By them not prosecuting, we have lost our choice to not view this salacious material and the pornographers have won. Jeremy has talked to our own County Attorney, Andrew Thomas, about prosecuting here in Arizona. You absolutely can't believe what he said. He won't prosecute the obscenity laws on the books. He will only prosecute a new law that gets enacted. What kind of lame excuse is that? We need attorneys to prosecute so that the jury can decide. When Andrew Thomas decides not to prosecute, THE PEOPLE HAVE LOST THEIR VOICE. Who is Andrew Thomas to decide and thereby letting the pornography industry win?

Supreme Court Victory

From the Lighted Candle Society:
It costs about $5000 to file an "amicus brief" with the Supreme Court and that's just the printing costs! After you add in costs for lawyers, researchers and other logistics you have an expensive venture before you. Last year the Lighted Candle Society took on these costs to file a "friend of the court" brief in the case of US vs. Williams.
Was it worth it? You bet!
On Monday, the US Supreme Court ruled 7-2 upholding anti-child pornography laws and confirming this fact: "obscene speech—sexually explicit material that violates fundamental notions of decency—is not protected by the First Amendment."
While the wheels of justice can be slow (and expensive) the results are lasting and impactful.
This is a huge victory in the fight against p*rnograhpy and hopefully there will be others!

a thought

"The virtue of tolerance has been distorted and elevated to a position of such prominence as to be thought equal to and even valued more than morality. It is one thing to be tolerant, even forgiving of individual conduct. It is quite another to collectively legislate and legalize to protect immoral conduct that can weaken, even destroy the family.



There is a dangerous trap when tolerance is exaggerated to protect the rights of those whose conduct endangers the family and injures the rights of the more part of the people."







I found this quote in an article I was reading today. It helped me see where we've lost the balance. Tolerance is good, and necessary, and right. . . However, tolerance should not be the sole purpose of legislation and interpretation of laws. Tolerant doesn't mean that we have to be complacent or apathetic. We need to make our concerns known. We need to stand up for legislation, enforcement of legislation and elected officials who will seek to protect the rights of the more part of the people.

Rep Broun

Rep. Broun is sponsoring the anti porn legislation to keep obscene materials off of the military bases. You can send a message to your Representative to cosponsor the bill. It literally took 10 seconds.

Action Items for AZ Marriage Amendment

Please contact your Senator TODAY and politely ask him or her to vote "YES" on SCR 1042.
Please contact President Tim Bee. Politely ask him to schedule the vote on SCR 1042 on the first day possible when all the senators supporting the amendment will be present and available to vote. Let Senator Bee know you, the voters, want the opportunity to vote on marriage in November!

Side note- California Supreme Court just legalized same sex marriages today. Don't let this happen to AZ.

Mariott Update

They received over 100,000 signatures on their petition!! Go to this link to watch a video update. You can still sign the petition if you haven't already.

AZ Marriage Amendment

The Arizona House of Representatives overcame a desperate technical maneuver by opponents and voted 33-25 to place the marriage amendment on the November 2008 ballot! SCR 1042 simply states, "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state."

SCR 1042 now awaits a final vote in the Senate. To be referred to the ballot, this measure will not require action by the Governor.

Thank you for continuing to stand with us as we work to let you vote on the definition of marriage for Arizona! Pray for our legislative efforts to be successful.

Sign up for the newsletter from the Center For AZ Policy- www.azpolicy.org

How Can We Unify?

When I read about grand theft auto 4, the content seemed so terrible and repulsive that I couldn't believe that it wasn't illegal for everyone.  I thought of all of the problems and damage playing this game would have on children and subsequently, society.

Then I watched as it broke all records and made $500 million the first week it was released.  (In comparison, a major box office movie hit, like Spiderman, only makes about $150 million in a week.  But with a video game, people see it over and over and over and participate in it over and over and over.)  With the outrageous numbers of people buying this, I started to see the game as a symptom of bigger problems, not only a problem alone.

A symptom of problems like:

 1.  Where are the parents?!  I talked to a friend that has teenage sons and brought up the topic of this video game.  She said, " Oh yeah, is that the game that is selling out everywhere?  What iabout it?"  This is a person who would never approve of the content if she just paid attention enough to know what her children were consuming.  Parents either choose not to find out, don't take the time to find out, or are just scared and uninformed at what technology can do.

2.  The accessibility and marketing of p*rnography is now targeted to youth and children.  A child can access and participate in the most base and vile activity with a click of a button on a computer, phone, or gaming device.  And these industries are actively targeting and trapping children at every chance they get.  They link adult websites to children's gaming sites online.  They put adult content at web addresses that are close misspelling of things like disneyland.com and many others. These are only two of the numerous technological ways that adult content is targeted specifically to children for whom it is illegal to view!  That doesn't count the blatant target of games like grand theft auto to juvenile audiences.  Everyone knows that they are playing this game.

3.  The people, politicians, the parents, the laws, and society as a whole haven't unified and fought these horrific attacks on our children and families. Why?  Is it the almighty dollar?  Is it that the decent caring people of the US don't have a tv station, radio station, or a big screen to promote what we know is right and good?  Is it that adults get confused and sucked in by the glamour of Hollywood, a place that does everything it can to promote the sexualizing and glorifying of teenagers ignoring the consequences of dangerous decisions?  Is it that politicians listen to the adult content industry (masquerading as anything else) rather than the hard working moms and dads of this country?  Just a few ideas.

What are your ideas?  

Welcome

Hey all! We're officially online. Let's blog!

I think our recent concerns of late:
Grand Theft Auto IV- How can something this degrading, harmful, violent be produced and even worse, be so popular? Do you not think that the illegal actions performed in this virtual reality will spill over into the real world? As people repeatedly "play" and become conditioned to the violence and horror, they begin to view reality differently and they begin to treat people around them differently. So, in reality, those of us who don't purchase this game and would never play a game like this, will suffer the consequences with those who choose to play. Our children will grow up with people who now believe the behaviors modeled in Grand Theft Auto IV are "normal" or

Miley Cyrus- Though we've personally never seen the show, or attended any concerts- all of my daughter's friends are faithful followers. It is such a disappointment that our society will not allow girls to be happy, sweet, and beautiful young ladies. Earlier, and earlier child-stars are sexualized and sensationalized- with their young audience watching and internalizing the message. If nothing else, this reminded me to not rely on Hollywood for role models and it reminded me to teach and discuss with my daughters what truly gives a young woman dignity, beauty, strength, happiness, and success.

Lastly, we're heading to Washington D.C. on May 19 to join with concerned citizens and groups nationwide and bring attention to the lack of enforcement of federal obscenity laws. We will ask lawmakers and government officials to prioritize the enforcement of federal obscenity laws. I am looking forward to this learning experience and opportunity to meet many people from across the country who share similar concerns and work tirelessly to make a difference.