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Garner Ted Armstrong
SPEAKS OUT!
Pornography
ls No"Victimless Crime"!
U
nder the guise of constitutional
rights and freedom of ex–
pression, the floodgates of fil th
and perversion have opened wide to
unleash a torrent of explicit pornog–
raphy and lurid erotica. The latest
perverse twist the porn barons are
milking for all it's worth is a booming
multimillion-dollar child-pornogra–
phy industry. Young children are
being recruited for every degenerate
act imaginable, with special empha–
sis on incest and pedophilia (adult–
child sexual relations).
lt is time for all decent people to
wake up from lethargy and see that
pornography is far from the so–
called "victimless crime" that sorne
professors of social behavior claim.
Sorne liberal intellectuals want to
dress up all this moral garbage in a
tuxedo and sell us the idea that de–
pravity and perversion can be "so–
cially redeeming" or beneficia! to
sorne people.
Those who condone porn, more–
over, assert that it has no proven
deleterious effect on the human
mind that can be clearly tied to the
cause of certain social crimes, per–
verted sex acts or emotional
disturbances. Unfortunately, the ex–
perience of many police or law en–
forcement personnel who have
caught savage sex criminals with
rooms full of pornography could tell
you a different story.
Are we supposed to believe that
pornography has no adverse effect
on people when we know that great
The
PLAIN TRUTH July 1977
works of art and literature have had
a very profound beneficia! effect on
people? Our whole educational sys–
tem is based on the concept that
printed matter does influence
human minds.
Far from being harmless, pornog–
raphy corrodes the very pillars of
civilization. lt is a rot that destroys
not only personal morals, but stable
family structure. Wherever it is per–
mitted to take deep root , it breeds
criminal vice and violence.
Physical ly, we are what we eat.
And mentally, emotionally and spiri–
tually, each of our minds is what it
feeds upon. Feed it compassion,
love, respect and concern for
others and you create a more civ–
ilized person or society. Feed it
hatred, violence, sexual permissive–
ness and you wind up with a total
self-loving society, with unconcern
tor the needs and welfare of others.
Make no mistake about it, por–
nography teaches powerful les–
sons. lt teaches that the highest
values are the immediate personal,
animalistic pleasures and urges that
enter the human mind. lt teaches
that sex is to be used without con–
trol , and then people are to be cas–
ually abandoned. When mingled
with violence, pornography advo–
cates harming others for the sake of
violence-and
enjoying
it. Like her–
oin, it demands ever more brutal or
perverse acts to give its sick adhe–
rents " kicks. "
The porn industry knows no lim-
its, no controls. And that is the very
essence of
social anarchy!
"'
Recently, an astute associate
professor of law at a Midwestern
university wrote in the
National Ob–
server:
"Some say, 'The best way
to deal with pornography is to let it
run its course; once sated, people
will get bored with it.' This is some–
thing like saying the best
way
to
deal with the filth of Lake Erie is to
let Lake Erie fill up until it can't take
any more. Why should parents have
to let their children's moral environ–
ment get so corrupt that by com–
parison Sodom and Gomorrah
resemble a Trappist monastery?"
lt's as stupid as pouring gasoline
on a fire to put it out!
The millions who piunge headlong
into pornography-sott core, hard
core, whatever-are ruining their
chances of being decent and trust–
worthy citizens, as well as robbing
themselves of the opportunity for a
normal, wholesome sex and family
life. Pornography a "victimless
crime"? What a hoax! Society al–
ready is paying a heavy price for
permitting pornography to prolifer–
ate.
Who's guilty for the popularity of
porn?
The public
for catering to and
making such perversion profitable;
public officials
for not having the
guts to pass or enforce laws that
restrict the spread of pornography;
the courts
and our entire legal sys–
tem for letting the porn barons off
the hook with light sentences or
fines, and twisting our constitu–
tional freedoms in the first place in
order to legalize such activities;
clerics
for succumbing to secular
moral relevancy and refusing to
spell out clearly to their· parish–
ioners the lesson about how God
deals with nations going the way of
Sodom and Gomorrah (see 11 Peter
2:6).
What new taboos will the porn
industry seek to break next? What–
ever it is, we can't afford it. Pornog–
raphy is a threat to any decent and
law-abiding civilization. lf we don't
stop the proliferation of pornogra–
phy in our homes or communities, it
will not only destroy them, but our
whole nation!
o
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