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Morality and Decency Conference Speakers
  

 Public Update

   October  24, 2007

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Right Under Your Nose

 

   
Catharine MacKinnonIn a speech titled “X-Underrated—Pornography and Popular Culture,” Pound Visiting Professor of Law Catherine A. MacKinnon criticized the encroachment of pornography into everyday life. The belief that pornography operates underground, she said, causes people to ignore obscene material that is right under their noses. “No matter how real and harmful pornography gets, it seems to live in this parallel universe where everything that happens is rendered harmless and unreal,” said MacKinnon, who was invited by the Committee on Women, Gender, and Sexuality and by the College’s Women’s Center. MacKinnon said that though the American public was horrified by photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the material was actually mild by pornographic standards. She argued that the same images, framed in a pornographic context, would never have inspired the same horror. “The notion that everything that happens in pornography and sexual exploitation go hand in hand.She added that the vast
  
   
majority of women in pornography are poor and have been previously sexually abused. Harvard: Prof Condemns Pornography
    
         
         
   

CHILD PORN Thanks to Howard Bashman (the How Appealing Blog) for pointing out that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued an opinion today, Connection Distrib. Co. v. Keisler, No. 06-3822, declaring unconstitutional the federal child pornography recordkeeping law (18 U.S.C. Section 2257).  The law requires that producers of pornography keep records, with proof of age, of actors in all films and other depictions to ensure that minors are not depicted in the material.  The law was passed in 1988 in the wake of findings by the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography that the porn industry was using children in some of its films (Tracy Lords and others).  The court held the law “facially invalid,” because it requires all producers and not just commercial producers of pornography to keep records.  It found that, on it’s face, the law applies to even married couples photographing themselves in sexual poses.  Thus, the court said, it would require those couples to keep records of the actors and actresses and affix a statement on the photos indicating where the records may be found.  Also, the court said the couples must make the records available to law enforcement "during normal business hours."  This interpretation of the law seems quite a stretch from that

 
   
intended by Congress which targeted the commercial producers of adult pornography who used girls under the age of 18 in hardcore films. 6th Circuit: Record Keeping Requirements for Producers of Sexually Explicit Images Held Unconstitutional
   
         
         
   
BORDELLOS Newspaper ads generate traffic. Just ask Bobbi Davis, owner of Nevada's Shady Lady Ranch and a plaintiff in a lawsuit that overturned a state law forbidding bordellos from advertising in Las Vegas media."It's doing good, it really is," she says about her new advertising. "A lot of people are calling, and a few people have even come on out." That's saying something, because the brothel is located 150 miles from the Strip in a town named ... nothing. "Actually, we don't live in any town, we're in the middle of the desert," she adds. Shady Lady's ads now run twice a week in the Daily Visitor Guide, which is wrapped around copies of the Las Vegas Review-Journal sold only on the Strip and the rest of the Resort Corridor. She also advertises in CityLife, an alt-weekly published by the R-J's parent, Stephens Media Group. R-J Publisher and Stephens Media Group President Sherman Frederick points out that the bordello ad is not running in the daily newspaper itself, or in copies that go to subscribers or single-copy readers
  
   
outside the tourist territory.  "Obviously any publisher is going to look at a brothel ad and be a little concerned about, 'Is this something we want in the paper?'" he says.Selling Sex Now Permitted in Vegas Papers
   
         
         

Family Concerns

 

PLEASERS Whatever may be your task, work at it heartily (from the soul), as [something done] for the Lord and not for men, knowing [with all certainty] that it is from the Lord [and not from men] that you will receive the inheritance which is your [real] reward. [The One Whom] you are actually serving [is] the Lord Christ (the Messiah).—Colossians 3:23,24 One of the most freeing things that I have learned in my years of walking with the Lord is how to break free from being a people pleaser. Now, I am not talking about living a healthy, unselfish life where we make the needs of others a priority. I am talking about a pressure to perform—an unhealthy drive to be accepted and approved by others. It is a desire so strong that it influences and controls the majority of our decisions. Are You A People Pleaser?
 
Centers for Decency is apart of a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization which encourages, motivates, educates, and equips the family and community in morality and decency offering information, articles, volunteers to make difference, and conference speakers thereby battling the pornography and obscenity. If you appreciate our focus and hard work, send any dollar amount for donations or creative gifts can be sent to Centers for Decency, 5161 San Felipe, Suite 320, Houston, Texas 77056 or call 713.266.2715.    A letter will be sent upon donation amount from  our tax exempt organization.