Message from “Morality in Media” President Robert Peters

This year’s White Ribbon Against Pornography (WRAP) Week will run Sunday, October 31, through Sunday, November 7. The primary goal of the annual WRAP Week is to heighten public awareness of the harms associated with pornography and the need to enforce obscenity laws to curb the proliferation of hardcore adult pornography online and elsewhere.

WRAP Week began with one woman in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 1987. Norma Norris heard the pastor of her Catholic parish lament that prosecutors and law enforcement agencies acted as if people didn’t care about the hardcore pornography being sold in their communities. Norma looked at the people in her church and said, “That can’t be; they’re here!” The idea of a white ribbon as a symbol of community standards of decency came to her and a movement was born.

Robert Peters, President of Morality in Media, had the following comments:

In 1987, the same year that Norma Norris launched the White Ribbon Against Pornography Campaign in Butler, Pennsylvania, U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese announced in Washington, D.C. the formation of a National Obscenity Enforcement Unit to combat the flood of “mail porn” and “video porn” that was then pouring into American homes and communities.

Back then, defenders of hardcore adult pornography said that the widespread availability of this material was proof that the average American was no longer offended by it and that obscenity laws were no longer enforceable because to be “obscene,” sexual material must depict hardcore sexual conduct in a “patently offensive” manner as measured by “contemporary community standards.”

Between 1987 and 1993, the U.S. Justice Department proved its critics wrong, winning one obscenity case after another and prompting John Weston, an attorney who represented hardcore pornographers, to describe the crackdown on Los Angeles area businesses as “a holocaust.”

Today, defenders of hardcore adult pornography are still saying that widespread availability of this material is proof that the average American is not offended by it; and undoubtedly there is growing acceptance of hardcore adult pornography, particularly among young males who are hooked on it.

To their credit, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the First Amendment does not protect obscene materials, and Congress has repeatedly updated and strengthened federal obscenity laws. What our nation now needs is vigorous enforcement of these laws by the Justice Department.

By displaying white ribbons and taking other steps, including writing to members of Congress and making complaints to local U.S. Attorney and FBI offices, citizens can express their opposition to the proliferation of hardcore adult pornography and in support of our nation’s obscenity laws.