Five Reasons To Rid Your Community Of Pornography

by JoAnn Hamilton

Economics. Pornography consumption adds to the cost of police services, the courts, the jails, etc., especially in communities which have "adult" bookstores, theaters, and peep-show booths. Pornography consumption supports the prostitution business in communities, and adds to costs of dealing with that offense. The areas of the city where legal pornography is consumed on-site and the places where spin-off (related) business are located usually become economically blighted areas, or perpetuate the blighted area, once it has deteriorated.
Public Safety and Health. Pornography promotes sexual behavior which fosters or enables the spread of the AIDS virus and other sexually transmitted diseases, most of which are increasing at alarming rates….Rape, child molestation, and other aggressive sexual behavior is both caused and promoted by pornography, especially hard core pornography. These wreak havoc on the safety of our families, since many women and children are at risk daily from users of hard core pornography.
Mental Health. Pornography is a sex-education teacher of our children and adolescents. The age group which views - consumes - pornography more than any other age is the group between 12-17 years of age. It can be predicted that this age group is most likely to be negatively affected by exposure to pornography. This is especially so if the pornography is violent, if the exposure is at the younger ages, and if the exposure results in a "peak experience" or a highly arousing experience. Children and adolescents unless taught in caring, systematic ways will believe that the abnormal or aberrant behavior depicted in pornography is normal. They will grow up with unrealistic, often morbid, ideas of what to expect from sexual relationships. This is extremely harmful to the mental health of children and adolescents and is one of type predisposing or preconditioning factors which lead to sexual disorder, deviance or dysfunction. It cannot help but cause unstable marriages, increase divorce rates and prevent the very social intimacy that young people and adults need.
Morality. Our society goes to great extents to bring out the best in our citizens, to nurture and develop our finest qualities. Yet, pornography appeals to the prurient interest. It touches the dark side in us and brings out the worst in us. It promotes the degradation of women. It is an intolerable, unacceptable, social stigma. It is wrong culturally and morally for the unregulated promulgation of degrading, dehumanizing propaganda. It is not the right thing to do. It is immoral to treat women as objects for sale and for use and abuse. Women are not just play-things. No society that tolerates - let alone condones or promotes - the selective abuse of women and children can call itself good. It is breeding decadence and self-destruction.
Religion. America is one nation under God, in whom we trust. Equality is not fostered by pornography; unequal power is promoted. Sexual immorality and promiscuity are promoted by pornography. The behaviors and attitudes encouraged by pornography are specifically forbidden by virtually every religion in the world - and for good reason. The image of God in mankind cannot abide alongside the deviance and unwholesomeness portrayed and depicted in pornography. As the Religious Alliance Against Pornography says, "Pornography is an evil that must be eliminated."

The following is adapted from "A Guide to What One Person Can Do About Pornography," by the American Family Association:

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED BY THE AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION

Question: Pornography is a choice: if you don't like it, don't buy it.

Answer: Pornography is like pollution. The person who does the polluting isn't always the person who's hurt by it. If a company moved into your neighborhood and began to dump toxic wastes into your water supply, people would do everything they could to protect themselves. The same must be done to eliminate pornography, because like pollution, it is hazardous to the health of our families and children.

Note by JoAnn Hamilton: The beginning of pornography is usually just the "bad picture," perhaps of the swimsuit variety. This escalates to users of sexually oriented businesses and often into sexually abused children. It may be a choice according to the law but people need to realize that in nearly all cases it escalates into actions that are deviant. Besides, 70% of all printed pornography ends up in the hands of children, and exposed as children, addiction is usually the long-run result.

Question: The porn industry is flourishing Americans must want it or simply don't care.

Answer: Certainly, some want it. That's why porn is so profitable. And obviously, some don't care. But surveys show that the majority of Americans are strongly opposed to trafficking in pornography and want it stopped. However, they are confused and discouraged in the face of a highly organized business and the loud false prophets of freedom.

Note by JoAnn Hamilton: A single exposure of Internet pornography can cause addiction in some people. It takes two weeks for others. The speed of addiction is also causing the porn people to flourish. Then the lie follows the addiction that there is no way out.

Question: Pornography is harmless Didn't a 1979 Presidential Commission Report say so?

Answer: The Majority Report of the 1970 Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography was called a "scientific scandal" by many in the scientific community. The U.S. Senate rejected it by a vote of 60 to 5. The Hill-Link Minority Report of that Commission was read into the record in both Houses of Congress as a "responsible position on the issues." The minority report cited many instances where evidence was suppressed when it went counter to the pre-determined "findings" of the majority report.

In addition, studies in the Hill-Link Report show linkages between exposure to obscene material and sexual deviancy, promiscuity, affiliation with criminal groups and more. However, extremists who wanted obscenity laws repealed as the majority report recommended, began a campaign in early 1977 to have the report resurrected and considered a reputable document.

Question: Why be concerned about obscenity when there is so much violent crime?

Answer: Pornography outlets breed and attract violent crime.

Question: Obscenity is a "victimless crime."

Answer:
1. There is no such thing as a "victimless" crime. In every crime there is a seller or seducer, and the person who purchases, or the seduced. That person is the immediate victim, and society is the ultimate victim, for with each seduction the moral fabric society is diminished. The "victimless crimes" theory is an active and insidious attack on almost all laws dealing with public morality, maintaining there is "no victim" when "consenting adults" indulge in drugs, prostitution, obscenity, homosexuality, adultery, incest, gambling, etc.
2. A glaring instance of victimization in obscenity are the children used in child pornography. Note by JoAnn Hamilton: Men are not "born" abusers of children. Their beginning is usually sexual abuse, usually of which pornography is the base for the offender, or exposure to pornography itself which leads to the use first of pictures and then to real children
3. For centuries civil communities have maintained laws against such behavior as detrimental to the public health, morals and welfare.

Question: When "consenting adults" go to see a dirty movie, no one is being harmed.

Answer: Regarding so-called "consenting adults," the U.S. Supreme Court said in Paris Theatre in June of 1973. "We categorically disapprove the theory that obscene films acquire constitutional immunity from state regulation simply because they are exhibited for consenting adults only. Rights and interests other than those of the advocates are involved. These include the interest of the public in the quality of life, the total community environment, the tone of commerce and possible, the public safety itself."

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