Religion’s Version of Yelling into the Wind A Penultimate Post

Nine-tenths of the appeal of pornography is due to the indecent feelings concerning sex which moralists inculcate in the young; the other tenth is physiological, and will occur in one way or another whatever the state of the law may be.
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), British philosopher

Is religion out of control? We have President Bush allegedly chatting with God personally, now we have National Porn Sunday tomorrow. For any Catholic priests reading this, it is not a day to attack the young boys in your flock, it’s a day for 75 evangelical Christian churches across the country to confront an issue rarely discussed in church, but not doubt running through people’s heads during long insufferable sermons.

One associate pastor was quoted as saying pornography is America’s dirty little secret. I have news for him, it’s not so secret or so little. In a suburb less than 10 miles from here, it’s know as the porn film capital. I am certain that the Chatsworth Chamber of Commerce doesn’t promote that statistic, but this is a profitable industry and a pleasurable distraction for some.

These are old statistics, (but you get the idea, just double or triple them to make them current) from the book Reefer Madness Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market by Eric Schlosser, according to Adult Video News, from 1985 to 1992 the number of hard-core video rentals each year in the Unite States rose from 79 million to 490 million. In 2001, the number climbed to 759 million. Americans spend as much as $8 billion to $10 billion on adult entertainment. It's not going to be stopped anytime soon.

A 2002 Christianity Today survey in showed that 51 percent of U.S. pastors called Internet porn their biggest temptation (I wonder if they meant theirs or their parishioners?). In the same survey, 37 percent of pastors called it a struggle, and four out of 10 said they'd visited porn Web sites (I believe they are talking about the pastors, but the article in the Dallas News was not clear).

Generally, this boring and victimless vice is better regulated than attacked. I'm afraid the churches can do nothing to stop this and only bring more attention to the topic, which ultimately will make it more mainstream and less of a forbidden fruit.