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Morality in Media Editor: Kelle S. Sisung Date: 2001 From: Special Interest Group Profiles for Students Publisher: Gale Document Type: Organization overview Length: 2,930 words Content Level: (Level 5) Lexile Measure: 1360L

Full Text: Founded: 1967 Employees: 13 Members: 14,000 PACs: None

WHAT IS ITS MISSION?

The stated mission of Morality in Media (MIM) is to use "its knowledge of the law and the vigorous involvement of informed citizens to address . . . the exploitation of obscenity in the marketplace, and the erosion of decency standards in the media." Arguing that pornography "degrades men and women, violates children, destroys marriages, serves as a training manual for sexual psychopaths in our midst, threatens public health and causes deterioration of entire neighborhoods," MIM uses its legal and publicity resources to promote stronger anti-pornography legislation, to provide information to the public about media and "decency issues," and "to intervene as a friend of the court in cases involving challenges to anti-pornography laws." Although MIM claims that it "does not believe in censorship," it "does believe that those who traffic in obscenity are responsible before the law."

HOW IS IT STRUCTURED?

The nonprofit MIM is governed by a board of directors, which averages 19 members and meets about four times a year. Day-to-day operations are directed by a president and executive staff. The president is also a voting member of the board. MIM has affiliates in Louisiana, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Wisconsin; and chapters in Michigan, Missouri, and Buffalo, New York. These chapters and affiliates operate independently of the national organization and are not supported financially through it or monitored by it. The national organization often does provide local chapters with publications and legal materials; experts to speak at local public meetings; analysis of legislation; and advice. In addition to its regional structure, MIM established its National Obscenity Law Center to act as its research arm.

PRIMARY FUNCTIONS

While MIM's staunch opposition to pornography and obscenity frequently involves it in efforts to shape and promote tougher legislation to curb "indecency" in the media, the organization's primary focus is to use its legal resources to support existing anti- pornography laws in the face of court challenges. In 1996, for instance, the organization played a key role in a Supreme Court decision which ruled that cable TV operators can prohibit indecent material on channels leased to independent programmers—a key provision of the Cable TV Act of 1992—and has been a major contestant in the battle to control obscenity on the Internet. Morality in Media also provides information about pornography and media decency issues to the general public through its membership newsletter and other publications, its public inquiry services, public speaking activities, and interviews with print and broadcast journalists.

Perhaps the most important resource in Morality in Media's anti-pornography information campaign is its National Obscenity Law Center (NOLC). Based in New York, the National Obscenity Law Center compiles information on obscenity and indecency laws and makes it available to individuals, civic groups, attorneys, legislators, law enforcement agencies, and prosecutors at all levels of government. The NOLC maintains the most comprehensive collection of materials related to obscenity law in the United States and its bimonthly newsletter is subscribed to by federal and state prosecutors, police and other public officials, law libraries, and other groups and individuals.

PROGRAMS

MIM runs a number of different programs, most centering around educating the public about its agenda. In support of its legal and legislative activities, MIM sponsors several programs aimed at increasing public awareness of pornography in media. Chief among these is the annual White Ribbon Against Pornography Campaign (WRAP), which is run in conjunction with a related program called Pornography Awareness Week (PAW). To show their opposition to pornography, citizens are encouraged to display white ribbons as a symbol of "community standards of decency" and to demand that obscenity laws be enforced. The 1997 WRAP campaign collected thousands of signatures on a petition to President Clinton calling for more vigorous enforcement of federal obscenity laws. In ironic testimony to the efficacy of the WRAP campaign, free speech supporters on the Internet launched their own Blue Ribbon Campaign to show their opposition to MIM-supported legislation aimed at curbing on-line pornography.

One of the most pressing items on Morality in Media's anti-obscenity agenda has always been sex on television. To protest the "growing assaults on standards of decency and civility that have become all too common TV fare," MIM annually sponsors a national Turn Off TV Day. In 1997, MIM permanently fixed its Turn Off TV Day on Valentine's Day, February 14. In addition to turning their televisions off for one day, participants are also urged to express their concerns about television programming to advertisers and network heads.

BUDGET INFORMATION

MIM's 1996 budget was $610,602. Most of this (more than $580,000) came from contributions, with the remainder derived from legacies and bequests, newsletter income, and investment income. MIM spent more than 70 percent of this money on its various programs, with about $120,000 going to the National Law Obscenity Center, $175,000 going to public education, and another $120,000 split between the newsletter and research and publication. Fund-raising accounted for about 20 percent of expenses.

HISTORY

The idea for Morality in Media began in Manhattan in 1962 with a Catholic priest, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, a Lutheran pastor, and a Greek Orthodox priest. Led by Father Morton A. Hill, S.J. (Society of Jesus), the group initially came together in response to the complaints of a mother who had discovered that pornographic magazines were circulating among sixth grade boys at the local school.

Working out of a small office in St. Ignatius Loyola parish rectory in Manhattan, the group set about researching the problem of pornography and the law, sharing what they learned with local church groups and organizations, appearing on radio and television whenever possible, and distributing a mimeographed newsletter. By 1966, at about the same time as the United States Supreme Court handed down its Fanny Hill decision which stated that a work must be "utterly without redeeming social value" to be declared obscene, the organization's activities had expanded to the point where it was forced to relocate to larger commercial quarters. There, in 1967 with the assistance of three volunteer lawyers, a newly established board of directors, and a professional writer, the fledgling organization, now called Morality in Media, incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation in the state of New York.

Word of MIM soon spread throughout the United States and in 1968 Father Hill was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to a Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. As it turned out, the commission's 1970 majority report recommended that all "adult" obscenity laws be repealed. Condemning the report as "flawed" and calling it a "Magna Carta" for the pornographers, Father Hill co- authored a minority report recommending enforcement of obscenity laws and the establishment of a national research and reference library on the Law of Obscenity. MIM followed this recommendation when it established the National Obscenity Law Center in 1976. Thanks in no small part to the efforts of Father Hill and MIM, the majority report was eventually rejected by President Nixon and the Senate. Hill's minority report on the other hand was cited no less than four times by the Supreme Court in 1973 in upholding obscenity laws.

MIM's efforts to clean up the media paid off again in the landmark 1978 FCC v. Pacifica case. The case originated in 1973 when MIM member John H. Douglas made a complaint to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1973 regarding the afternoon broadcast of George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" monologue, arguing that Carlin's broadcast violated the Federal Broadcast Indecency Law. In 1978 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision made by the FCC that the Carlin monologue was "indecent" and should be prohibited.

In 1983 Father Hill met with President Reagan to discuss what MIM regarded as the failure to enforce the Federal Obscenity Laws. The meeting eventually led to the formation of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography which issued a final report in 1986. MIM lobbying also prompted the establishment of a permanent Child Exploitation and Obscenity Enforcement Section in the Department of Justice in 1987 and led to the extension of the Federal Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act to include obscenity offenses. This law allows the government to confiscate the assets of convicted pornographers. Morality in Media submitted briefs in support of the law in two court challenges brought before the Supreme Court. The group also figured prominently in the drafting of the 1984 Child Pornography Act and later supported it before the Supreme Court.

With the explosion of new media in the 1990s, Morality in Media became more vocal than ever, leading the battle to force broadcasters to rate television programs, pushing for a tougher and more explicit ratings code for movies, and calling for federal legislation to control obscenity and pornography on the Internet and on-line services. In 1996 MIM helped defeat a court challenge to a key provision of the Cable TV Act of 1992 which allowed cable TV system operators to ban indecent programming on leased access channels. In upholding the provision, the Supreme Court also effectively ruled for the first time that government can regulate indecent programming on cable TV. The same year also saw the culmination of a long struggle to extend the ban on broadcast indecency by two prime-time hours, to 10 P.M. instead of 8 P.M.

CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES

MIM faces a number of political issues in an effort to accomplish its objectives. In 1999, for example, the organization issued statements regarding new Calvin Klein children's underwear advertisements that some critics thought were inappropriate and possibly pornographic. In addition, MIM maintains a position on the amount of violence that should be allowed on television and advocates legislation to control such material. One of the most controversial cases that MIM has been involved in was the battle over restrictions to free speech on the World Wide Web.

Case Study: The Communications Decency Act

In the early to mid 1990s a new front was emerging in MIM's ongoing battle against pornography—the Internet. Once an academic backwater used primarily by scientists and researchers to communicate with colleagues, the Internet's popularity exploded when new hypertext software made it easier to explore the Internet's vast resources. With graphics and multimedia capabilities added, the Internet began growing at an exponential rate.

By 1994 the Internet was host to millions of companies, organizations, and individuals. Users reveled in the new medium's anarchic spirit and pornographers were able to take advantage of it to publish and distribute material. Corporations jumped aboard to push their products. The mainstream media began to issue reports about the Internet's dark side, of a cyberspace inhabited by pedophiles and stalkers. The perception that the Internet was dangerous and unsafe for children grew even stronger when Time magazine published a cover story on "Cyberporn" featuring a study that supposedly proved the existence of a massive pornography industry on the Internet. Although the study was later shown to be grossly inaccurate, it spurred an onslaught of demands from organizations such as MIM that the federal government legislate pornography off the Internet.

In early 1995, in a move that infuriated the Internet community (and especially Internet providers), Senator Jim Exon (D-Neb.) introduced Senate Bill 314—the Communications Decency Act (CDA). Expanding current FCC regulations on "obscene" and "indecent" telephony and telegraphy to cover any content carried by all forms of electronic communications networks, the CDA made telecommunications and network providers criminally liable if their network was used in the transmission of any material deemed to be "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent," as provided under the Communications Act of 1934. In order to comply with this bill, Internet providers would either have to restrict the activities of their users or monitor every private communication, file transmission, E-mail message, and Web site to ensure that no activity for which they could be held liable was taking place.

Not surprisingly, MIM supported this effort to regulate the Internet, although the organization was critical of the bill as it was written, fearing that it was too vague and all-inclusive and would be vulnerable to a court challenge. These fears were well founded. Congress never held hearings on Senator Exon's bill and the legislative process took place mostly "behind closed doors." Rushed to completion so that it could be included as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the CDA was signed into law by President Clinton on February 8, 1996. In the single largest demonstration from the Internet community in history, thousands of world wide Web pages went black for 48 hours to protest the new law. Newly formed Internet advocacy groups such as the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition (CIEC), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), together with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) immediately launched a court challenge on the basis that the CDA violated the First Amendment.

Notwithstanding its concern that the CDA's proponents had not done their homework, MIM, along with other conservative anti- pornography groups such as the National Law Center for Children and Families, the Family Research Council, Enough is Enough!, and the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief supporting the act. MIM's position was made clear in the brief's introduction, which stated that "In their zeal for unfettered freedom to distribute all material, however pornographic, without any consideration for the larger audience of children on-line, Plaintiffs urge this Court, in effect, to surrender the legislature's compelling interests in protecting children in favor of the economic interests and ideological wishes of computer indecency providers."

In the end, the court, unmoved by the arguments of MIM and its allies, came down firmly on the side of the plaintiffs. On June 12, 1996, a panel of three federal judges in Philadelphia granted the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition's request for a preliminary injunction against the Communications Decency Act, unanimously ruling that "in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we presume that governmental regulation of the content of speech is more likely to interfere with the free exchange of ideas than to encourage it." Just over a year later, on June 26, 1997, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Communications Decency Act violated the First Amendment, finding that all provisions of the CDA were unconstitutional as they applied to "indecent" or "patently offensive" speech.

Although not surprised by the decision, MIM was nevertheless disappointed, stating in a press release that the decision meant that "children now have no protection under the law from indecent explicit sexual depictions on their home computers." MIM also criticized the Supreme Court justices for failing "to provide guidance on how the Communications Decency Act could be amended to constitutionally protect the children of our nation from this vile material." In view of this, the organization announced that it would request Congress to appoint a Blue-Ribbon Commission "to come up with a practical, effective, and constitutional solution".

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

While MIM has gained some headway against the amount of indecent media, there are several problems on which it will focus special attention in the coming years. These problems include inadequate or non-existent state law in ten states, failure of prosecutors to enforce obscenity laws, and inadequate enforcement of indecency laws by the Federal Communications Commission. To counter

these problems, MIM is working on proposals for new laws that would control indecency on cable TV and the Internet to be introduced in Congress by the end of 1999. It also plans to increase its efforts to provide the public with "how-to" information, resource materials, and leadership.

GROUP RESOURCES

Providing information resources is central to MIM's activities. The organization's extensive NOLC library includes copies of all reported obscenity cases since 1800, copies of all federal and state obscenity laws, copies of many anti-pornography ordinances and model laws, a Brief Bank Index, and monographs for recurring inquiries. The center also publishes a digest of obscenity cases, a handbook on the prosecution of obscenity cases, and a bi-monthly newsletter. Other resources include Morality in Media's Web site at http://pw2.netcom.com/~mimnyc/MAINPAGE.HTM which includes an order form for MIM publications as well as press releases, briefs, a history of the organization, news about its campaigns and other information. The NOLC also maintains an extensive Web site http://pw1.netcom.com/~nolc/index.html featuring articles from the center's current news bulletin, a subscription form, and a detailed description of the Obscenity Law Reporter, the NOLC's leading publication. For more information on either MIM or the NOLC, write to Morality in Media, 475 Riverside Dr., Ste. 239, New York, NY 10115 or call (212) 870-3222.

GROUP PUBLICATIONS

Among MIM's regular publications are the bi-monthly Morality in Media newsletter for all members. The organization also publishes booklets, pamphlets, and study reports on a variety of subjects related to obscenity and indecency. These include: How to Win the War in Your Community: The People vs. Pornography, Pornography's Effects on Adults and Children, and Cliches: Debunking Misinformation about Pornography and Obscenity Law. NOLC publications include: The Obscenity Law Reporter, a 3-volume ring- binder digest of obscenity cases decided since 1800; Handbook on the Prosecution of Obscenity Cases, a comprehensive guide for prosecutors, from investigation through trial to final appeal; and The Obscenity Law Bulletin. For more information on any of these publications, contact Morality in Media's Publications Department by calling (212) 870-3222, write to MIM at 475 Riverside Dr., Ste. 239, New York, NY 10115, or send E-mail to mimnyc ix.netcom.com or nolc ix.netcom.com.

FAST FACTS

Gross revenues for the pornography industry in 1996 were larger than the domestic box office receipts for mainstream Hollywood movies.

(Source: "The Business of Porn." U.S. News and World Report, February 1997.)

Abernathy, J. "Net Censorship: Alternatives Gain Momentum." PC World, September 1995. "The Business of Porn." U.S. News and World Report, February 1997. Cleaver, Cathleen A. "Cyberspace Cleanup or Censorship." Washington Times, 11 February 1996. Dworkin, A., and C. A. MacKinnon. Pornography and Civil Rights. Minneapolis, Minn.: Organizing Against Pornography, 1988. Dyson, E. "If You Don't Love it, Leave it," New York Times Magazine, 16 July 1995. El Nasser, H. "Challenges to Cyberporn Bill Could Clog Courts." USA Today, 19 July 1995. Elmer-DeWitt, P. "On a Screen Near You: Cyberporn." Time, 3 July 1995. Family Research Council. "Smut: Out-of-Line Online." Washington Watch, 26 February 1996. Goss, N., and G. Ricks. "Pulling Plug on Cyberporn." Santa Barbara News-Press, 8 October 1995. Healey, J. "Clashing over Obscenity in Cyberspace." Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 8 July 1995. "How Time Fed the Internet Porn Panic." Harper's Magazine, September 1995. Huffington, Arianna. "Internet Evils Beyond the Indecency Limits." Washington Times, 16 March 1996. Levy, S. "A Bad Day in Cyberspace: The Senate Takes a Sledgehammer to Our Communications Future." Newsweek, 26 June 1995. Lynch, Stephen. "The Rating Game." Orange County Register, 31 March 1996. Meeks, B. N. "The Obscenity of Decency: With Senator James Exon's Communications Decency Act, the Barbarians Really are at the Gate." Wired, June 1995. Wallace, Jonathan, and Mark Mangan. Sex, Laws and Cyber-Space: Freedom and Censorship on the Frontiers of the Online Revolution. New York: Henry Holt and Co.,1996. Weingarten, Fred W. "Debate over Indecency on the Net Reveals Deep Divisions." Computer Magazine, February 1996. Zillmann, D., and J. Bryant. "Effects of Prolonged Consumption of Pornography on Family Values." Journal of Family Issues, 1988. Zipperer, J. "The Naked City: 'Cyberporn' Invades the American Home." Christianity Today, 12 September 1988.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1999 Gale Group Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition) "Morality in Media." Special Interest Group Profiles for Students, edited by Kelle S. Sisung, Gale, 2001. Gale In Context: Opposing

Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ2119000081/OVIC?u=txshracd2512&sid=OVIC&xid=a6da5dd9. Accessed 4 May 2021. Gale Document Number: GALE|EJ2119000081