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PAGE 6 — The Georgia Bulletin, March 12, 1987 Violence, Child Pornography Cited National Coalition Targets "Hard Core" Pornography BY CHRIS V ALLEY The National Coalition Against Pornography (NCAP) is launching a nationwide campaign against obscenity and child pornography. The campaign will be directed against “hard core" pornography in 211 “major media" areas of the country, including Atlanta. “I’m delighted NCAP is making this effort," says Father Daniel J. O’Connor, pastor of Sacred Heart Church in r—— \ Dinner Launches Atlanta Chapter BY GRETCHEN REISER A dinner gathering of several hundred Atlantans sat in apparently stunned silence Feb. 26 after view ing a film that described, in part, the contents and ef fect of hard-core pornography and child pornography- in the United States. The main speaker. Dr. James Dobson, whose “Focus on the Family" film series is frequently shown in local churches, said that when he was con fronted with the contents of material that is legally obscene and outlawed in this country, yet readily available, he was overwhelmed. He viewed the material as one of 11 members of the 1985-86 U S. At torney General's Commission on Pornography. When he viewed the material. Dr. Dobson said. "1 wanted to run, I wanted to cry." He described material that included violence, degradation and tor ture of men. women and children. One series of material he viewed showed the murder of a young boy. Dr. Dobson said. He charged that the material is “incredibly evil." harmful to families and children and “incredibly- degrading for women." Yet, he said, there is an $8 billion market in obscene material and it is largely controlled by organized crime and Mafia families. The Attorney General's Commission, he said, outlined 93 recommendations about how to enforce existing law against obscene materials. He said that the public has been unconcerned about enforcement of existing law and has been deluded into thinking that pornography is harmless and that the Attorney General’s Commission “was a right-wing hit squad of the Reagan Administration." After serving on the Commission he has joined with a Presbyterian minister from Cincinnati. Rev. Jerry Kirk, to make a film entitled “The Winnable War." He is emphasizing the effect upon the family in their joint campaign against child pornography and hard core pornography, material which is judged to be obscene and which is illegal. Dr. Dobson and Rev. Kirk, two of the three speakers at the Feb. 26 dinner at the Waverly Hotel in Atlanta, said their effort was directed against what is already illegal in the U.S., not against “soft-core" pornography like Playboy and Penthouse magazines. The purpose of the dinner, which brought together several hundred invited guests from law enforce ment, politics, business and religious spheres, was to launch an Atlanta-based chapter of the National Coalition Against Pornography, the organization founded by Kirk. Rev. C. Lewis Abbott will head the Atlanta group. The third speaker at the dinner was U.S. Attorney H. Robert Showers, who has been nam ed director of the newly formed Obscenity Enforce ment Unit of the U.S. Department of Justice. Publicity after the Commission's Report was published accused the Commission of endangering the First Amendment and threatening freedoms, Dobson noted. In fact, Dobson said, the Commission questioned why the existing law against obscenity was not being enforced, and why no effort was being given to stopping the flow of material victimizing and abusing children and adults as it came out of Los Angeles County where much of it is produced and as it flowed through U.S. Customs from abroad. To con tend that the material is protected by the Constitution or harmless is unconscionable, he charged. "There are incredible harms associated with obscenity," he said. Those who would like more information on the Na tional Coalition Against Pornography — Atlanta Area may write to P.O. Box 670224, Marietta 30066 or call 924-6760. v ; downtown Atlanta and the director of pornography confron tation for the archdiocese of Atlanta. “NCAP is nationwide and ecumenical. It desires to involve all people of good will in this effort: parents, judges, attorneys, law enforcement officials." The goals of NCAP are to use the obscenity laws already in effect to fight hard-core and child pornography, and to broaden and strengthen pornography laws in order to ad dress the new technologies of cable television and so-called “dial-a-porn" operations. “We're not going to use any direct action approach such as boycotting businesses (which sell or make pornography available). That’s not our approach," explains Father O'Connor. NCAP was founded by Rev. Jerry Kirk, a Presbyterian minister in Cincinnati, in order to advocate for and monitor implementation of recommendations made by the U.S. At torney General's Commission on Pornography. This com mission was established in 1985 to study the problem of por nography, asking what harm it does; and, if harm is done, what can be done about it. Eleven commissioners, drawn from the academic, legal and human services fields, spent a year examining contem porary pornography. Their Final Report was issued in July 1986. The Report examines the questions of the distinction between obscenity arid pornography; types of por nography; what evidence there is of harm done by por nography; the distinction between printed word and other visual depictions; First Amendment rights and govern ment regulation; what types of pornography should be pro secuted; and the connections between pornography and organized crime and prostitution. The U.S. Government Printing Office edition of the Final Report comes to 1.960 pages, typewritten not typeset. Specific Definitions The commissioners discovered that pornography is a broad term. They wryly note that, “'pornography' seems to mean in practice any discussion or depiction of sex to which the person using the word objects." But the commissioners themselves are very specific about their definitions of obscenity and pornography. The Final Report defines pornography as material which is “predominantly sexually explicit and intended primarily for the purpose of sexual arousal." Obscene material is defined as "material that has been or would likely be found to be obscene in the context of a judicial proceeding employing applicable legal and con stitutional standards" Obscene materials are only a portion of the larger category of pornography. The commissioners identified three types of pornography. Category I materials depict violent sexual activities. Category II depicts degrading and humiliating sexual activities. Category III includes a wide range of sexual activities without violence, submission, degradation or humiliation. The identification of three specific categories of por nography is central to the findings of the commission. Dur ing their course of study, the Report states, the commis sioners came to a unanimous agreement, “that looking at all sexually explicit materials, or even all pornographic materials, as one undifferentiated whole is unjustified by common sense, unwarranted on the evidence, and an altogether oversimplifying way of looking at a complex phenomenon" Violent Pornography According to the Report, the explosive growth in Category I and Category II materials is the overriding characteristic of pornography in the mid-1970's to mid-1980s. Previously, violent and degrading materials were simply rare in American erotic depictions. Obscene materials are those which meet the constitu tionally permissible definition found in a 1973 case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, Miller v. California. According to this definition, commonly known as the “Miller standard," material is obscene if all three of the following conditions are met: “1. The average person applying contemporary com munity standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest (in sex) ; and 2. the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state (or federal) law; and 3. the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, ar tistic, political, or scientific value." A later U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1977, Smith v. United States, clarified that national, not local, standards apply in determining obscenity. Thus, the commissioners concluded, obscenity prosecutions are limited to “hard core” materials, “devoid of anything except the most ex plicit and offensive representations of sex." Association With Violence The commission Report claims that there is an associa tion between pornography and violent or sexual behavior. The commissioners do not claim “solid" evidence of a clear cause-and-effect relationship between pornography and violent or sexual acts. The commissioners explain, “We live in a world of multi ple causation, and to identify a factor as a cause in such a world means only that if this factor were eliminated while everything else stayed the same then the problem would at least be lessened. In most cases, it is impossible to say any more than this, although to say this is to say quite a great deal." The Final Report makes a clear distinction between the printed word and non-print media such as photographs, film and video. It maintains that the printed word has a uni- Times Square Marquees que relationship with the First Amendment rights of free speech and of political dissent. Printed word pornography may be declared obscene by the courts. Yet the commissioners were far more concern ed about non-printed word materials such as photographs, videotapes, cable television transmissions, and telephone messages. Commissioner Father Bruce Ritter, founder of Covenant House for street children, explained, in a state ment accompanying the Final Report, that. “First Amend ment values are crucial to American life and the virtual sanctity and integrity of the printed word central to the ab solute freedom of political debate and dissent....we (com mission members) do not favor a return to times when the repression of unpopular ideas was part of our political land scape." Citizen Awareness The Final Report stresses the need for citizens to be aware of the legal -criteria for distinguishing obscene materials from materials which are simply distasteful. “We encourage people to object to the objectionable," the commissioners advise, “but we think it even more impor tant that they tolerate the tolerable." Father O’Connor feels that it is very difficult to get the general public involved in supporting public officials who attempt to enforce obscenity laws. "Americans, particular ly Catholics, are rightly jealous of First Amendment rights,” he says. “Pornographers say that this (campaign against pornography) is just a group of 'do-gooders’ trying to censor books." Father O'Connor points to a publication titled “The Case for the National Coalition Against Pornography," which states, "it is a basic fact that obscene materials are not pro tected by the Constitution any more than libel and slander are protected forms of speech." This is based on a critical distinction between freedom to express ideqs and simply the graphic portrayal of gratuitous violence and sexual acts. (Continued on page 7)
