Florida- from www.naplenews.com – Pornography and religion intersected Tuesday night when a pastor and a porn star locked horns during a debate at Florida Gulf Coast University.

Craig Gross, a Nevada-based minister, and Ron Jeremy, an X-rated film actor, faced off before a packed room to debate the merits and flaws of the billion-dollar pornography industry.

Between bawdy barbs about sexual organs and porn film titles, the pair addressed more serious aspects about sex work, movies, and addiction.

“It’s not just entertainment,” argued Gross, 35. “What you’re watching on these videos has become sex ed.”

Jeremy, 58, supported the industry that rocketed him to fame — with a few caveats.

“It’s consenting adults watching consenting sex for consenting adults to watch,” he said. “Either you like it or you don’t.”

Some small “renegade” X-rated film production companies do not maintain industry standards, Jeremy admitted.

“We can’t go and control every single thing on the Internet,” he said. “I can’t and I won’t.”

When asked to address the issue of addiction, which was a recurring theme for Gross, Jeremy demurred.

“There is porn addiction,” he said. “You can’t blame us any more than you can blame Seagram’s Seven for people being addicted to alcohol … but nobody goes and blames the people who create it.”

The duo, who bill themselves as the Porn Pastor and the Porn King, have debated at least 50 times at major public universities, Ivy League schools, and churches since 2006 to publicize their stances on pornography.

Jeremy, a porn industry heavyweight, has performed in nearly 2,000 X-rated films, as well as stints in non-pornographic film and music videos.

Meanwhile, Gross tinges his Christian ministry with provocative sex-oriented lingo. He sells T-shirts and hands out Bibles with “Jesus loves porn stars” emblazoned on them through his online ministry hub, XXXChurch, which touts products — some free, others with a price tag — to help overcome porn addiction. For a few hundred dollars, his ministry will also train people to proselytize sex industry workers in “strip club outreach.”

Though Gross and Jeremy referred to each other as friends throughout the event and admit to spending time together off the clock, their fundamental disagreement about the role of pornography in society was the axis of the debate.

“What you’re watching on these screens is creating unrealistic expectations of what sex is,” Gross argued.

Those expectations are no different, Jeremy countered, than those from music videos.

Some students attended the event for extra course credits, others bowed down as Jeremy entered the room. But one question from the public elicited the strongest crowd response: “Which has done more harm, religion or the porn industry?”

“I think religion has hurt a lot of people,” Gross said. ” I’m sorry that there has been just as much, if not more harm by religious folks than by porn.”