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Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values in Cincinnati, Ohio, held a workshop on how to combat pornography at this year's Reclaiming America For Christ conference in Newport Beach, California.

Burress personally knows the devastating effects of pornography: he was exposed to it for the first time at age 14. It quickly captivated his teen years and young adult life, and eventually destroyed his first marriage.

Looking at pornography as a boy taught him to view women as objects, rather than people. "It was my sex ed," he recalled.

He had a message for parents at his workshop: as difficult as it was for him to overcome an addiction to pornography, it is much worse for today's generation. He pointed to surveys that indicate the average age of exposure to pornography is now eight-and-a-half years of age, and that 95% of kids are exposed to pornography. Most importantly pornography "teaches you to take, not give. It is about lust, and it has nothing to do with love."

He also noted that while our society has become concerned with protecting children from alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes, "We have to educate even parents about the harm of pornography. When kids see their first glimpse of porn, they're not going to go out of their way to show it to their parents."

According to Burress, our nation's porn problem has gotten bigger in recent years, thanks to many factors, including the Internet, and a glaring lack of federal obscenity prosecutions under the previous presidential administration. Today, the industry brings in at least a $12 billion a year in the U.S., and $56 billion globally. 33% of high school boys think it is okay to rape a high school date when she is drunk. 40% believe it is okay to rape after dating six months. Where do these attitudes come from? One of the themes in porn movies is the "rape myth" that women enjoy being raped -- that when they say "no," they really mean "yes."

He pointed out that there is a great deal citizens can do about hard-core pornography. He stated two things must be done: political involvement and working to enforce community values.

Burress was asked what changed him in a recent interview. He answered, "On September 6, 1980, I accepted salvation through Jesus Christ." Though Christ had entered his life, Phil struggled with an addiction to pornography for three more years. When asked what helped him to change, he cited God's promise in 1 Corinthians 10:13: "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it."

"The problem with pornography is that it puts images into your head that shouldn't be there," Phil said. "What you have to do is train your mind to not have a response to the pornographic images. As 1 Corinthians 10:13 makes clear, when we're being tempted, we have to make a decision right then whether or not to pursue that temptation."

After his conversion, Phil knew he wanted to make a difference. So he volunteered at Citizens for Community Values, and in 1991 he became its full-time president. Under his leadership, CCV has attracted national attention for its work on the pornography issue: there are now no "adult" bookstores or video stores in the greater Cincinnati area.

Burress said that his success was rooted in "getting the local elected officials and police to uphold the laws. Almost all "adult" porn is hard-core, and therefore illegal." In Cincinnati, he says he had to be persistent with local law enforcement officials, who would not enforce the obscenity laws. And when they didn't, he made sure that it became a political problem for them: "Police should uphold all the laws, not just some of them. Not upholding obscenity laws means they aren't interested in protecting women and children."

In addition to his work on the pornography issue, Burress' organization has also partnered with the CENTER FOR RECLAIMING AMERICA on many projects, including the 1998 "Truth In Love" campaign to tell those struggling with homosexuality that there is hope for change.

Phil's wife, Vickie, is also a pro-family activist who makes fighting pornography a top priority, as director of the Indiana affiliate of the American Family Association.

Phil Burress speaks at 2001 Pornography workshop.

She married her first husband at age 20 and dreamed of having the all-American family, complete with kids and the house behind the picket fence. But her husband's pornography addiction got in the way of her dreams. Taught by her church to be the submissive housewife, she put up with her husband's porn addiction for the duration of their marriage.

When asked about the effects pornography had on her, Vickie said, "It hurt my confidence as a woman. I didn't tell anybody else about our problems, and I felt it was all my fault."

While still married, she decided to become an activist, which eventually landed her a job as the director of the Indiana Family Association. "If I couldn't get my husband to stop, I would get others to stop," she now says.

Her work there led to stricter regulations on sexually oriented businesses, passage of a statewide "Defense of Marriage Act" (where the state would only recognize marriages between a man and a woman) and convincing Indiana's largest gasoline chain to remove its pornographic magazines from its 56 locations. She has also spoken to elected officials in Indiana about the harmful effects of pornography on the family and about victim's assistance programs to help those who have been hurt by it.

But even as she fought against pornography around Indiana, Vickie's husband still refused to give it up. In 1996, she filed for divorce. "I could no longer deal with living a double life," she said.

Soon afterwards, Phil and Vickie met at an American Family Association conference. Since they had similar stories to tell and were involved in the same line of work, they quickly became friends. "Phil was already a hero of mine [because of his work in Cincinnati]," Vickie said. Two and a half years ago they married, and they have continued their efforts to protect communities, families, and children from the harmful effects of pornography.

"Because pornography has had such a devastating impact on families, it is one of the five issues Dr. Kennedy has directed the CENTER to focus on this year," said Janet Folger, national director of the CENTER FOR RECLAIMING AMERICA. "This is why we appreciate Phil Burress' willingness to give a workshop on fighting pornography at the local level. As he has shown by his actions, one person really can make a difference. And with Vickie joining him, they are leading the way in the nation."

To find out more about his organization, Citizens for Community Values, check out their web site at www.ccv.org.