The Anti-Sam Brownback Blog

Another day, another mention of Brownback in the Family Research Council’s newsletter. This time it is about a porn survey conducted by Morality in Media. With a name like that, I am sure they are completely non biased. In any case, here is what they found:

…three quarters of Americans want the Justice Department to strictly enforce laws against pornography. Bob Peters is with the media watchdog.

“77 percent of the public support this new effort and over 60 percent said that they strongly supported it. I think that’s an indication that the American people are not, on the whole, pleased with this proliferation of hardcore pornography in our society.”

At the same time, child pornography is a multi-billion dollar commercial enterprise, and is among the fastest growing businesses on the Internet. Kansas Senator Sam Brownback says the proliferation of obscenity bears careful scrutiny.

“We’re seeing this now impact marriages in such a significant way and society overall and yet it continues to spread and we have not been as concerned about it as we need to be.”

They do not include the questions asked in the survey, nor do they include a data chart so that we can see the raw numbers. On the basis of this alone, I would not consider this survey to be scientific or at all accurate. The first rule of fundamentalist Christian polling? Do not let the peons view polling data for they may draw conclusions not sanctioned by the Holy One, James Dobson.

Looking past the glaring statistical omissions, there is another problem with this poll. Most Americans will rail against porn in public and then consume it in private. Perhaps the most famous case is Utah v. Larry Peterman. Peterman was a video rental store owner who has a section of the store devoted to “adult” titles. He was charged under a Utah obscenity law and subsequently acquitted after it was shown that his store did not run afoul of the Miller Test. What was the most important piece of evidence? The NYT explains:

The 1973 Supreme Court case Miller v. California established a threshold for defining illegal pornography; a major test was that it had to be considered obscene to the “average person, applying contemporary community standards.”

[Mr. Peterman’s] lawyer argued that Mr. Peterman was not violating community standards, because people in Utah County bought 20,000 adult sex videos from one satellite programmer alone in the period that Mr. Peterman was said to have broken the law; it was double the volume in most cities the size of Provo. And in the Provo Marriott, guests were paying for nearly 3,000 explicit adult videos every year, according to court testimony.

Hmmmm. So the largest public opponents of pornography are likely its largest private consumers. That’s why I don’t believe this survey. People aren’t going to support pornography over the phone to a stranger.

I mentioned at the beginning of the post that Brownback get yet another mention in the FRC’s newsletter. These hearings on pornography have garnered him a decent amount of attention in religious circles. This is a continuation of his strategy to inflame his base. Brownback needs to scare his base into voting for him so he uses themes that scare and validate the concerns of religious fundamentalists. His campaign slogan could be “Gays, Abortion Doctors and Porn… They’re Commin’ to git ya!”

Yesterday Senator Brownback held a hearing on Capital Hill on the dangers of pornography. Salon.com has a good article describing the proceedings and I encourage you to take a look.

The main shocker from the hearing? DARE for porn. I kid you not:

To date, Brownback has put forward no specific legislation to address the problems he sees with pornography. But he mentioned several possible options, including a… federal public education campaign, along the line of anti-drug advertising, to inform Americans about the dangers of watching explicit sex.

Yeah, because that turned out so well. I’ll leave the punchlines to other bloggers, but I have to wonder what this campaign’s “egg in frying pan” commercial would look like…

Brownback has found an issue that is guaranteed to get him attention from both the religious fundamentalists and the general media. Porn. From the heinously bigoted FRC:

A Senate Subcommittee, chaired by Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, is holding a hearing tomorrow on why the government should care about pornography. It’s the third in a series to call attention to the pornography industry and its effect.

High on the priority list; the manner and extent the Justice Department uses in enforcing anti-pornography laws.

Pat Trueman, former head of the Justice Department’s Obscenity Enforcement Group, believes the Brownback hearings will have an effect.

“Because of the pressure of Sam Brownback and the support of the American public, and the good will of the Attorney General, we are going to see the Justice Department have a strong effort against obscenity very soon.”

Whatever your feelings about regulated pornography (i.e. not child porn), I think we all can agree that the Justice Department has better things to do than pursue regulated pornographers. They should be protecting us from terrorists, fighting organized crime, or reducing human trafficking among many other responsibilities. It is hard to believe that in this era of terror fears, valuable resources are spent on a religious crusade against pornography.

I guess that is Sam Brownback for you. He’d rather outlaw your Playboy than fight terrorism. We won’t even touch the possible underlying psychological reasons for his porn fixation…

From the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington comes a report(pdf) on members of Congress who accept campaign donations from porn purveyors. It may surprise some to know that ‘ole Sam was one of the politicians highlighted. You may be asking yourself if this is this the same Sam Brownback who held hearings on the alleged awful effects of pornography on society. Yes. The same.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) accepted $17,000 in contributions from corporations and executives who profit from pornography… Sen. Brownback held a hearing on pornography addiction in November, 2004. After hearing testimony from experts about how porn affects the brain, Sen. Brownback said, “[i]t is the crack cocaine of sexual addiction” and “its pervasiveness affects our families.” In early 2005, Sen. Brownback praised U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales when he announced he would appeal the dismissal of federal criminal indictments against a California pornography producer, stating “[t]he Justice Department’s decision indicates a renewed effort to go against purveyors of pornography, whose products are so damaging to our culture, our families, and our nation.”

The importance of this is twofold.

1. Brownback’s most ardent supporters are fundamental Christians. His comments and hearings against porn are specifically designed to play to this base. The fact that Brownback accepts funding from pornography purveyors can serve to plant seeds of doubt about Brownback’s true feelings. People do not like a pandering corporate politician, and the more his ties to corporate porn are discussed the better.

2. If there is one thing the voting publics dislikes more than a pandering corporate politician it is a hypocrite. This whole affair reeks with the fresh dollar bill scent of hypocrisy. This flies in the face of the image that Brownback has of a “straight shooter” and a moral, Christian man. This is, in my opinion, the most important angle of this story. Far be it from me to condemn pornography. The discussion of morality is for a different place and time. However anyone feels about the business, the hypocrisy is what is important.