Re: Spin Control Alert (LI Newsday, 2/12/96)

["Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+@CMU.EDU>]

Excerpts from mail: 13-Feb-96 Re: Spin Control Alert (LI .. by Sten
Drescher@grendel.te 
>         As someone who would prolly be considered part of the
> 'religious right' (why don't we ever hear of the 'religious left', who
> are prolly just as much in support of banning porn?), I have to take
> exception to this.
> I'm appalled by the CDA, and, if you start
> pointing out to religious supporters of the CDA that it has already
> resulted in the King James version of the Bible being removed from (at
> least) one web site, I'm sure that some of them will be as well,

I do hope the religious right keeps fighting against GAK. However good
their intentions may be on *that* issue, it is transcendently obvious to
anyone who has been following the flux on Capitol Hill that they were
behind the recent push to regulate the Internet. (I assume your Bible
argument is just posturing. No U.S. Attorney, political appointees they,
ever will prosecute someone who puts the complete text of the King James
Bible online.)

So you are trivially correct in asserting that not everyone who
identifies as a member of the "religious right" supports all the actions
of their lobbyists in Washington. However, that does not change the fact
that conservative theocrats were the architects of the cyberporn scare
and the accompanying "indecency" legislation.

The selfsame theocrats, in fact, used Marty Rimm's cyberporn study and
the TIME cyberporn cover as a vehicle to promote their agenda. The very
conservative Sen. Chuck Grassley in July 1995 organized a hearing around
Rimm's study to justify his anti-smut legislation. "Not a study by an
advocacy group!" he crowed on the Senate floor.

Of course, he neglected to say that religious right lobbyists *helped
write* Rimm's study, and a member of his staff likely was involved.

Let's see who the players are, as identified by Mike Godwin:

 1) _The National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families._
Formerly the National Coalition Against Pornography, this organization
renamed itself last year, perhaps in anticipation of its legislative
compaign against online "indecency" (a broader category than pornography).
 
 2) _The National Law Center for Children and Families._ This orgnization
was formerly headed by antiporn activist Cathy Cleaver -- it is now headed
by Bruce Taylor, formerly a prosecutor specializing in obscenity cases and
formerly the general counsel of a an antiporn group based in Phoenix,
Arizona, and founded under the name "Citizens for Decency through Law."
The organization was founded by Charles Keating, himself a veteran of the
Attorney General's Commission on Pornography (a.k.a. the Meese
Commission).
 
 3) _Enough is Enough!_  Presenting itself as a secular effort, this
organization provides a platform for former party girl and ex-No
Excuses-jeans model Donna Rice-Hughes, who has leveraged her fame from the
Gary Hart candidacy into a career as an antiporn activist. (With almost
suspiciously frequent meetings with Bob Dole.)

Enough is Enough is headed by Dee Jepsen, who testified about the
dangers of online nastiness at Grassley's cyberporn hearing. Bob
Chatelle from the Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression reports
that Jepsen is Chairman of the Board of Regents of Pat Roberson's Regent
University, is Cochair of Washington For Jesus, and has served on the
Steering Committee of the Coalition on Revival, closely linked with the
Christian Reconstructionist movement. Reconstructionists believe that
Christians should "take dominion" and establish Old Testament law. Many
Reconstructionists openly advocate death for homosexuals, preferably by
stoning.

I'd be happy to expand on the links between the religious right and the
move to regulate the Net, but Mike Godwin has already done it quite
eloquently, at:
   http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/rimm/

Some additional background about Donna Rice's censorship efforts,
including recent media profiles of her:
  http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/dl?num=1178
  http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/dl?num=302

-Declan