NEW YORK — On Monday, May 19, representatives of an interfaith coalition of organizations addressed an audience of more than 100 individuals at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to call attention to U.S. Justice Department and FBI obscenity law enforcement policies that undermine Government’s ability to strengthen the family, protect children from pornography and curb sexual exploitation of children and sexual trafficking.

The Conference was followed by an orderly two-hour demonstration at the U.S. Justice Department. The news media were invited to both events but only the religious media chose to cover them.

The following groups participated in the event: American Decency Association, American Family Association, Athletes & Business For Kids, CatholicVote.org, Christian Film & TV Commission, Citizens for Community Values, Concerned Women for America, CP80 Foundation, Family Leader Network, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Girls Against Pornography, Liberty Counsel, Lighted Candle Society, Marriage Savers, Maryland Coalition Against Pornography, Morality in Media, Rabbinical Alliance of America and the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. & Canada.

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

“Somehow, I find it extremely difficult to believe that were the American people to elect Barak Obama as their next President, and were Mr. Obama to shock his very ‘liberal’ supporters by ordering the Justice Department to vigorously enforce federal obscenity laws, and were the ACLU, People for the American Way and other prominent ‘liberal’ organizations to then organize a conference at the National Press Club to protest this crackdown, followed by a demonstration (protest) at the Justice Department, that our nation’s secular news media would totally ignore these events.

“But when prominent pro-decency and pro-family organizations that expected great things from President Bush in the war against obscenity gather together at the National Press Club to protest the failure of the Justice Department to vigorously enforce federal obscenity laws, followed by a demonstration at the Department, the secular media ignore these events. How can this be??

“Coincidentally, one of the organizers of the May 19 Conference was Brad Curl, founder of Athletes & Business for Kids and author of a just published book, ‘No Free Press.’ The primary point of Mr. Curl’s book is that increasingly our nation’s secular news media are controlled by a very small number of corporations (e.g., AOL/Time Warner, News Corporation, Viacom, Disney, Hearst, General Electric/NBC, and Gannett) and that this secular news media cannot be trusted to fully and fairly cover news which conflicts with the financial interests or ideological views of the parent corporations.

“For example, should we realistically expect the news arms of Time Warner and News Corporation to provide full and fair news coverage of organizations that work for enforcement of federal obscenity laws, when both companies peddle hardcore pornography on their cable and satellite TV systems?

“With all the evidence that the explosion of obscenity is, among other things, corrupting children, destroying marriages, costing people their jobs, and contributing to sexual abuse of children and to trafficking in women and children, it is extremely difficult to understand how the secular news media could consider efforts to promote vigorous enforcement of federal obscenity laws a ‘non-issue.’

“The press release announcing the event also noted that the leading Presidential candidates had been asked to make their views about vigorous enforcement of obscenity laws known. One would think the secular press would be interested in knowing which of the three had responded and how.”