Morality in Media

Santorum: 'The Obama Department of Justice Seems to Favor Pornographers over Children and Families'

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 3/15/2012 5:35 pm

Rick Santorum’s campaign repeated the right-wing myth that the Obama administration refuses to prosecute “obscene” pornography. He announced his support of efforts by groups including the Family Research Council, Morality in Media, the American Family Association and Concerned Women for America to increase obscenity prosecutions, and lamented that the Justice Department “refused to enforce obscenity laws.”

For many decades, the American public has actively petitioned the United States Congress for laws prohibiting distribution of hard-core adult pornography.

Congress has responded. Current federal “obscenity” laws prohibit distribution of hardcore (obscene) pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite TV, on hotel/motel TV, in retail shops and through the mail or by common carrier. Rick Santorum believes that federal obscenity laws should be vigorously enforced. “If elected President, I will appoint an Attorney General who will do so.”

The Obama Administration has turned a blind eye to those who wish to preserve our culture from the scourge of pornography and has refused to enforce obscenity laws. While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over children and families, that will change under a Santorum Administration.

I proudly support the efforts of the War on Illegal Pornography Coalition that has tirelessly fought to get federal obscenity laws enforced. That coalition is composed of 120 national, state, and local groups, including Morality in Media, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, American Family Association, Cornerstone Family Council of New Hampshire, Pennsylvania Family Institute, Concerned Women for America, The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and a host of other groups. Together we will prevail.

However, the Department of Justice just this month prosecuted an obscenity case in Los Angeles. Furthermore, the DOJ continuously prosecutes child pornography and exploitation cases. But for Santorum and his Religious Right allies, the evidence never seems to get in the way of their anti-Obama smears.

Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 9/15/2010 5:46 pm
  • Richard Viguerie gloats that "Republican leaders are in a panic because they have lost control of the Republican Party. Grassroots constitutional conservatives are inside the Citadel, and are poised to take over."

  • Sometimes a title just says it all, like this one from Accuracy In Media: "An Ecofascist Crescent Moon Near Ground Zero."

  • FRC is hosting an event entitled "Is There a War Between Social and Economic Conservatives?" with Ross Douthat, Lawrence Reed and Bob Patterson later this month.

  • The anti-immigration nuts at ALIPAC have endorsed Sharron Angle.

  • Bob Peters of Morality in Media is outraged that TLC is promoting polygamy.

  • Huh? Randall Terry says that blaming him for any deaths that resulted from riots over his destruction of the Quran "is like saying that a woman who is abused by her boyfriend or husband is guilty of bringing violence on herself because she said or did something that irritated him."

  • The band The New Pornographers will no longer be performing at a Christian college because their name is just too racy.

Peters Offers a "Clarification"

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 4/14/2009 11:15 am

Last week we posted a press release from Roberts Peters in which he linked gay marriage and the recent spate of mass shootings to a single cause - namely the decline in the influence of Christianity in our culture.

Sensing that such a claim was going to be meet a rather hostile reaction, Peters attempted to clarify his point by saying that "it most certainly is not my intention to blame the epidemic of mass murders on the gay rights movement."

Of course, if you have to write something like that in that first place, it's a good sign that you know that you are making a rather controversial statement. And so it was no surprise that Peters' press release generated a lot of negative coverage.

And so he is back with a follow-up statement attempting to clarify his point once again:

In an MIM Release dated April 9, Morality in Media President Bob Peters commented on the above stating, among other things, that the push for "gay marriage" and the epidemic of mass murders had a common root -- namely, that "increasingly we live in a 'post-Christian' society, where Judeo-Christian faith and values have less and less influence." Mr. Peters' comments generated a number of negative responses from gays and others, which prompted the following additional comments:

"In retrospect, I should have included the other lead story that appeared on the front page of the NY Times on April 4. That story reported on our nation's rapidly growing unemployment problem, which can also be explained in good measure by the precipitous decline in morality. Among other things, the current economic crisis is a result of arrogance, blind ambition, deceit, dishonesty, envy, foolishness, greed, irresponsibility, lack of integrity, recklessness, etc.

Peters is intent on making his point clear and so he has also thrown in some twenty-plus year-old quotes from gay activists to bolster his point:

To put it another way, the success of the 'gay rights movement' is inversely proportional to the degree of influence that the historic Christian faith and morality have on American society. This is not to say that the 'gay rights movement' is the primary cause of our nation's moral decline. But if Christianity has been integral to the success of this nation, then the success of the 'gay rights movement' is not a good sign.

Of course, this only ends up reinforcing the very point he was trying to clarify since he is claiming that gay rights can only succeed by undermining the influence of the Christian faith ... and since the lessening of the influence of Christian faith in America is what Peters says is responsible for the recent shootings (and the economic crisis) all he has done is expand his original point to make is sound as if he is saying that gay marriage is responsible for mass murder and unemployment.

And then, for good measure, he throws in a comparison to Nazi Germany:

I do think that without the positive influence of Christianity we would not have become a great nation, and common sense ought to inform us that we will not remain the same nation without that influence ... I would also add that Nazi Germany was not a great nation because it was in no way good.

Perhaps he should have just quit while he was behind.

Right Wing Round-Up

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 4/9/2009 5:45 pm
  • Dan Gilgoff wonders why Religious Right groups were all but silent about Tony Dungy's invitation to join the Obama administration's faith advisory council.

  • Pam notes that Rick Warren is now coming under attack from right-winger for his "betrayal" on marriage.

  • Andrew Sullivan continues to hammer away at the National Review's anti-marriage equality editorial.

  • Think Progress reports that Texas State Rep. Betty Brown thinks Asian-Americans should change their names because they’re too hard to pronounce.

  • Steve Benen asks a good question: what is Newt Gingrich talking about?

  • Finally, as a follow-up to our earlier post about Morality in Media's Bob Peters, David Corn digs up this fascinating fact:
    • It might be tempting to dismiss Peters and Morality in Media as marginal, but this group did receive federal funding from 2005 through 2007. The money supported a Morality in Media project, ObscenityCrimes.org, which paid two retired law enforcement officers to review citizen complaints about obscenity on the Internet and to forward the best leads to the US Justice Department for possible prosecution. A total of $300,000 was provided to Morality in Media through two earmarks Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) placed into spending bills, according to Peters. And a portion of that money went to cover Peters' salary. As The New York Times reported in 2007, no obscenity prosecutions had resulted from the Morality in Media's obscenity-tracking work.

A Good Rule of Thumb

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 4/9/2009 12:37 pm

Personally, if I had to write a disclaimer saying "it most certainly is not my intention to blame the epidemic of mass murders on the gay rights movement," I'd think long and hard before publishing whatever preceded or followed that statement.

But I'm not Morality in Media President Bob Peters, who notes that, on April 4, the New York Times "ran adjacent front-page articles on the Iowa Supreme Court decision legalizing 'gay marriage' and the gunman who murdered 13 people in New York" and uses that to argue that "the sexual revolution is inversely proportional to the decline in morality; and it is the decline of morality ... that is the underlying cause of our modern day epidemic of mass murders":

"The underlying problem is that increasingly we live in a 'post-Christian' society, where Judeo-Christian faith and values have less and less influence. Among other things, Judaism and Christianity taught that murder was wrong and that included murder motivated by anger, hatred and revenge. Both religions also taught that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves and to forgive others.

"For many citizens, what has replaced Judeo-Christian faith and values is the secular value system that is reflected in films, rap/music lyrics, and videogames and on TV and now the Internet, where the taking of human life for just about any reason is commonplace and is often portrayed in an appealing manner and in realistic detail. Murder motivated by hatred and revenge is also justified.

"This secular value system is also reflected in the 'sexual revolution,' which is the driving force behind the push for 'gay marriage;' and the Iowa Supreme Court decision is another indication that despite all the damage this revolution has caused to children, adults, family life and society (think abortion, divorce, pornography, rape, sexual abuse of children, sexually transmitted diseases, trafficking in women and children, unwed teen mothers and more), it continues to advance relentlessly.

"It most certainly is not my intention to blame the epidemic of mass murders on the gay rights movement! It is my intention to point out that the success of the sexual revolution is inversely proportional to the decline in morality; and it is the decline of morality (and the faith that so often under girds it) that is the underlying cause of our modern day epidemic of mass murders.

Nobody Pays Attention to the Right

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 5/21/2008 10:52 am
Various right-wing groups held a press conference and protest earlier this week and nobody cared, so now Morality in Media is complaining about bias: "But when prominent pro-decency and pro-family organizations that expected great things from President Bush in the war against obscenity gather together at the National Press Club to protest the failure of the Justice Department to vigorously enforce federal obscenity laws, followed by a demonstration at the Department, the secular media ignore these events. How can this be??"
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Morality in Media Posts Archive

Santorum: 'The Obama Department of Justice Seems to Favor Pornographers over Children and Families'
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Thursday 03/15/2012, 5:35pm
Rick Santorum’s campaign repeated the right-wing myth that the Obama administration refuses to prosecute “obscene” pornography. He announced his support of efforts by groups including the Family Research Council, Morality in Media, the American Family Association and Concerned Women for America to increase obscenity prosecutions, and lamented that the Justice Department “refused to enforce obscenity laws.” For many decades, the American public has actively petitioned the United States Congress for laws prohibiting distribution of hard-core adult pornography.... MORE >
Right Wing Leftovers
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 09/15/2010, 5:46pm
Richard Viguerie gloats that "Republican leaders are in a panic because they have lost control of the Republican Party. Grassroots constitutional conservatives are inside the Citadel, and are poised to take over." Sometimes a title just says it all, like this one from Accuracy In Media: "An Ecofascist Crescent Moon Near Ground Zero." FRC is hosting an event entitled "Is There a War Between Social and Economic Conservatives?" with Ross Douthat, Lawrence Reed and Bob Patterson later this month. The anti-immigration nuts at ALIPAC have... MORE >
Peters Offers a "Clarification"
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Tuesday 04/14/2009, 11:15am
Last week we posted a press release from Roberts Peters in which he linked gay marriage and the recent spate of mass shootings to a single cause - namely the decline in the influence of Christianity in our culture.Sensing that such a claim was going to be meet a rather hostile reaction, Peters attempted to clarify his point by saying that "it most certainly is not my intention to blame the epidemic of mass murders on the gay rights movement."Of course, if you have to write something like that in that first place, it's a good sign that you know that you are making a rather... MORE >
Right Wing Round-Up
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 04/09/2009, 5:45pm
Dan Gilgoff wonders why Religious Right groups were all but silent about Tony Dungy's invitation to join the Obama administration's faith advisory council.Pam notes that Rick Warren is now coming under attack from right-winger for his "betrayal" on marriage.Andrew Sullivan continues to hammer away at the National Review's anti-marriage equality editorial.Think Progress reports that Texas State Rep. Betty Brown thinks Asian-Americans should change their names because they’re too hard to pronounce.Steve Benen asks a good question: what is Newt Gingrich talking about?Finally... MORE >
A Good Rule of Thumb
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 04/09/2009, 12:37pm
Personally, if I had to write a disclaimer saying "it most certainly is not my intention to blame the epidemic of mass murders on the gay rights movement," I'd think long and hard before publishing whatever preceded or followed that statement.But I'm not Morality in Media President Bob Peters, who notes that, on April 4, the New York Times "ran adjacent front-page articles on the Iowa Supreme Court decision legalizing 'gay marriage' and the gunman who murdered 13 people in New York" and uses that to argue that "the sexual revolution is inversely proportional to... MORE >
Nobody Pays Attention to the Right
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 05/21/2008, 10:52am
Various right-wing groups held a press conference and protest earlier this week and nobody cared, so now Morality in Media is complaining about bias: "But when prominent pro-decency and pro-family organizations that expected great things from President Bush in the war against obscenity gather together at the National Press Club to protest the failure of the Justice Department to vigorously enforce federal obscenity laws, followed by a demonstration at the Department, the secular media ignore these events. How can this be??" MORE >