Family Fragments :: Fighting Pornography, Saving the Family

Lighted Candle Society Newsletter - September 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:11:00 +0000

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Download a version of the newsletter here.

Lighted Candle Society Newsletter - September 2008 - Get more Business Documents

Justin Hart on the Gayle Ruzicka Show

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:43:00 +0000

Justin discusses the latest efforts of the Lighted Candle Society to fight pornography.

MP3 File

A Private Divorce, a Public Problem

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:41:00 +0000

Tabloids across the country are reporting on the Christie Brinkley divorce. The details are sordid, ugly and a pretty good reflection of what pornography is doing to marriages across the world. As one report put it:

Christie Brinkley, one of the world�??s first supermodels, proved that beauty doesn�??t necessarily buy happiness �?? or fidelity �?? when she told a court how her �??perfect marriage�?? imploded when it was revealed her 49-year-old husband was having an affair with a teenager.

Brinkley, who is involved in a divorce battle with her fourth husband, Peter Cook, also testified that she subsequently discovered her husband had been spending £1500 a month on porn sites, using their then 11-year-old son Jack�??s name.

Cook had signed up to a local sex site, posted naked pictures of himself on the Internet and was advertising for swinging partners.

Brinkley, 54, fought to have her divorce heard in public �?? a highly unusual move in family court �?? because she wanted her children to know the truth about her marriage break-up.

While marriage therapists might question the value in exposing your children to this type of issue it certainly gives us a chance to comment on the disease of pornography.

Indeed, the story being played out in court could be written by innumerable concourses of failed marriages. The availability of pornography coupled with the intensity of the obscene material has created a whirlwind which is sweeping up families in its wake.

Five years ago the Association of Matrimony Attorneys conceded that the Internet is playing a significant role in the break-ups that they oversee. Where does that put us today?

More proof? Check out our website: HerStoryLives.com

Townhall.com Column: The Slippery Slope

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:22:00 +0000

The Slippery Slope is Real (and Real Slippery)

Justin Hart
Monday, June 30, 2008

As the bedtime story tells it, Chicken Little�??s unhinged nightmare began with a small piece of falling sky. The hysteria that followed assumed that the rest of the big blue ceiling would come tumbling down any minute. Today, conservatives are ritually accused of inciting a similar panic on issues from abortion to pornography; from immigration to States�?? rights; and most recently with gay marriage. Skeptics casually cover us over with Mr. Little�??s mantle and call us out for using a Slippery Slope argument. �??You�??re overreacting!�?? they exclaim.

The truth is that Progressives on the left are the ones using the Slippery Slope argument to support their agenda and push us down the very slide they say doesn�??t exist.

Gay Marriage

Thanks to the California Supremes the big debate of the day revolves around gay marriage. Liberals accuse conservatives of drawing a sinister straight line from homosexuality to Armageddon. Certainly, there are pockets on the right who make this correlation but it�??s the exception not the rule.

Most conservatives I hear from are upset about the inch-by-inch ground we give up on traditional values. The end result isn�??t a ball of fire; instead we wake up in a foggy, swampy mess of concessions that really does impact society. Conservatives are more than happy to concede gray areas on this graph but not the trajectory.

Frankly, we don�??t need to prove a downward slope. The left has done it for us. Take the justification of the New Jersey Supreme Court in their 2006 determination that the State can and should move closer and closer to gay marriage. Indeed, in their minds, it�??s just the natural next step.

Follow their downward leading logic in their own words:

�?� "New Jersey's courts and its Legislature have been at the forefront of combating sexual orientation discrimination and advancing equality of treatment toward gays and lesbians."

�?� "In 1992, through an amendment to the Law Against Discrimination (LAD), New Jersey became the fifth state to prohibit discrimination on the basis of �??affectional or sexual orientation.�??"

�?� "In making sexual orientation a protected category, the Legislature committed New Jersey to the goal of eradicating discrimination against gays and lesbians."

�?� "In 2004, the Legislature added �??domestic partnership status�?? to the categories protected by the LAD."

�?� "The Legislature, moreover, created the New Jersey Human Relations Council to promote educational programs aimed at reducing bias and bias-related acts, identifying sexual orientation as a protected category."

�?� "Legislature passed the Domestic Partnership Act, which confers certain benefits and rights on same-sex partners who enter into a partnership under the Act."

�?� "The Domestic Partnership Act has failed to bridge the inequality gap between committed same-sex couples and married opposite-sex couples."

�?� "Significantly, the economic and financial inequities that are borne by same-sex domestic partners are also borne by their children."

�?� "Cast in that light, the issue is not about the transformation of the traditional definition of marriage, but about the unequal dispensation of benefits and privileges to one of two similarly situated classes of people."

�??Cast in that light�?? has quickly become the verse, chorus and bridge for most every liberal libretto. Traditional marriage is bound to fall asunder when you cast it �??in that light�??. It�??s high hypocrisy to claim that the Slipper Slope is a ruse and then utilize it to justify your endgame.

Abortion

Last week the National Institute of Child Health and Development announced a Down Syndrome test for pregnant mothers in their first trimester. The Washington Post quoted Dublin Surgeon Fergal Malone: �??By the time you're 20 weeks pregnant, most women will be feeling fetal movement. We wouldn't want to underestimate the psychological or emotional difficulty of undergoing pregnancy termination that late.�?? Indeed.

The Clintonian mantra of �??safe, legal and rare�?? has now given way to the Clintonian voting motif �??early and often.�?? Of course, there�??s also the question of why? Why is it that pro-choice advocates want to rid the world of Down Syndrome children?

Jonah Goldberg recently brought to light the historical relationship between eugenics and Liberal Progressives in his best-selling book Liberal Facism:

�??Eugenics fit snugly within this new worldview, for if nations are like bodies, their problems are in some sense akin to diseases, and politics becomes in effect a branch of medicine: the science of maintaining social health. �??

In short, if we�??re going to get rid of unwanted babies we might as well get rid of the right ones. With these marching orders we finally understand the �??why�?? of first trimester �??disease�?? tests: Liberals know what�??s best for all of us.

Conservatives have taken it on the chin for three decades now for suggesting that abortion could lead to soft eugenics. One neat thing about the Slippery Slope though is that it�??s easy to document the downward spiral after you�??re through the Hegelian water slide. Guess what, we were right.

As Amy Harman reported recently for the New York Times:

�??Kirsten Moore, president of the pro-choice Reproductive Health Technologies Project, said that when members of her staff recently discussed whether to recommend that any prenatal tests be banned, they found it impossible to draw a line -- even at sex selection, which almost all found morally repugnant. "We all had our own zones of discomfort but still couldn't quite bring ourselves to say, 'Here's the line, firm and clear' because that is the core of the pro-choice philosophy," she said. "You can never make that decision for someone else." �??

�??Choice�?? is the ultimate subjective grease on the Slippery Slope which brings these contrasts into sharp relief: conservatives employ the Slippery Slope to call out our fall from grace; liberals acknowledge as much but insist we simply sit back, enjoy the ride and make the most of it. Like some bizarre reenactment of a Bugs Bunny �??�??dis line, no �??dat line!�?? routine we find ourselves standing over the cliff with a free fall on our next step.

Pornography

Speaking of rabbits, we can�??t seem to escape the omnipresent Playboy brand these days. This last week I shared a park bench with a teenager sporting a baseball cap with the familiar bunny logo. However, unlike its cousin, the drum-beating, ray-ban-wearing Energizer rodent, the consumptive product behind Hefner�??s mascot isn�??t quite as long lasting or satisfying.

Recent trends indicate that the centerfold playmate should start looking for another job. Professional porn is out; the day of the amateur has arrived. Pornography addicts of a gone-by age had to get their fix via the plastic wrapped glossy at off-hours and discretely hide it from their significant others. Today, the product comes streaming onto the iPhone free of charge while the significant other is watching on or more likely, filming it with you.

To each his own I suppose. Unless of course the �??his�?? in �??his own�?? is your 16-year-old son. In which case you end up with seventeen high-schoolers anxious to Tivo �??Nanny 911�?? for pressing personal reasons. The nexus of technology, amorality and teenage curiosity is wreaking havoc on our children. Amateur porn has become the main sex educator of our kids. Professor James Weaver testified before the Senate in 2006:

�??�?� pornography -- with its seemingly factual, documentary-style presentation of sexual behaviors -- has usurped most other socialization agents to become the de facto sex education for children and adults alike. Thus, the likelihood persists that the main messages of pornography have a stronger influence on the formation of sexual dispositions, including coercive disposition, than alternative forms of sexual indoctrination.�??

Never mind this supposed damage. According to Justice Ginsburg and Souter who recently declared in their dissenting opinion in US vs. Williams: �??As a general matter pornography lacks the harm to justify prohibiting it.�?? Visit PornographyStats.com to judge for yourself but I gather most people would at least agree that pornography isn�??t fully harm-less. Even staunch feminist Naomi Wolfe senses the impact: �??In the end, porn doesn't whet men's appetites�??it turns them off the real thing.�??

Unlike gay marriage and abortion the Slippery Slope for pornography is not what you expect. Today, sexually explicit material takes its shape in a YouTube clone for bestiality driving societal entropy and numbing the next generation of families to the possibility of true intimacy.

In 2005, NARAL sponsored a host of parties across the country with the cute catch phrase: �??Screw abstinence!�?? That pretty much sums up the Left�??s attitude towards conservatives as we stand there with our thumbs in the dike. Our stopgaps are their fodder to stoke the fires and push us down the Slippery Slope. Enjoy the ride!

Coming to an iPhone near you

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:52:00 +0000

From Time Magazine

Vivid, a leading adult entertainment company based in Los Angeles, says that 50% of its mobile browser traffic now comes from iPhones. The company expects that to grow with the release of Apple's new model on July 11. Vivid CEO Steve Hirsch told TIME that his company will launch what it calls a "supersite" this summer to capitalize on the new iPhone. Vivid is investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the new supersite, Hirsch says.

Penthouse is investing tens of millions in digital R&D, says its CEO, Marc Bell. "The iPhone is a beautiful medium," Bell says. The company, which Bell says partners with 60 carriers in 30 countries, now owns an array of social networks under the "Friendfinder" banner. It plans a new portal pegged to the iPhone launch and new offerings that Bell boasts are unlike anything on the market. "We're planning a whole new level of interactivity," says Bell.

Digital Playground, a high-end adult production company based in Van Nuys, California, is launching a new portal that will automatically adjust to the iPhone's browser. The company, which has partnerships with phone networks in 48 countries, according to founder Ali Joone, already takes in about $50 million in revenue annually. Joone says he is editing some videos to include more close-ups to suit the iPhone screen. "In your palm, the iPhone is more cinematic than other devices," Joone says.

Pink Visual, also based in Van Nuys, will likewise launch a new portal aimed at the 3G iPhone this summer. The company's first iPhone site has been attracting 3,000 new visitors a day. It was designed specifically for Apple's device: the videos are re-sized to fit its horizontal screen when the device is turned sideways. An icon can be downloaded to an iPhone's home screen, says spokesperson Kate Sylvan, enabling one-click access to porn clips on the phone. In order not to offend Apple's sensibilities, Sylvan says, Pink Visual plans to avoid linking its new marketing campaign to Apple's own ads for the iPhone. Sylvan says many porn consumers access adult materials on their iPhones while traveling, because they're wary of using company-issued laptops or public computers to access adult entertainment.

Judging Pornography

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:26:00 +0000

Today, Townhall.com published an article by the Lighted Candle Society.

You can read it in full here.

Judging Pervasive Pornography

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:42:00 +0000

Just how pervasive is pornography?

If a respected Reagan appointee on one of the highest courts in our land sees no issues in posting prurient and perhaps even explicit sexual photos on his personal website what does it say about the rest of society? How pervasive is our addiction to pornography?

Now consider this random coincidence: Judge Alex Kozinski will be presiding over one of the first major obscenity trials in Southern California.

Let's set the right tone here. Judge Kozinski is an extremely well-respected jurist of the 9th Circuit Court and prolific legal mind. We believe that he can probably separate his own weird interests from the public interests at hand.

That being said, no one can deny that there is a real irony and even a conflict of interests when it comes to defining obscenity under these circumstances.

Listen, the research out there already shows us how pervasive and accepted pornography is. But its one thing to indulge in the habit; its quite another to upload and share these things with your friends on your personal website.

We will be watching.

News from the Front

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:36:00 +0000

Here are some of the headlines that have been following these past few weeks:

Adult Movie Producer Found Guilty In Obscenity Trial - This is a landmark case that may pave the way for the Justice Departments to start taking these issues seriously. Another case in LA is making the jurors sick to their stomachs.
Verizon, Time Warner Cable, Sprint to Block Child P--- Sites - Three ISPs have agreed to block and purge child pornography from their servers.
Naked Photos Shared Via Cell Phones Land Teens In Hot Water - Cell phone teen pornography is becoming more and more of a problem. As shown here, things can deteriate pretty rapidly.

June 2008 Newsletter

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:56:00 +0000

Below is our June 2008 Newsletter highlighting our annual awards dinner and calling attention to an important bill working its way through Congress. Click here to download the PDF version.

Lighted Candle Society - June 2008 Newsletter - Get more College Essays

A Parents Guide to Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:58:00 +0000

by Justin Hart

A Chicago news station reported last week about a man pleading guilty to federal child pornography charges for luring three minors to engage in sexual activity and photographing them. He contacted them via Facebook.

We've raised warning signs before about social networking sites. Personally, we're big fans of Facebook but we recommend against using MySpace which saw thousands of predators rounded up last year.

That being said, parents need to be prepared and educate themselves about the pitfalls of Facebook. For this reason we've put together a "Parents' Guide to Facebook".

Click here to get your copy for free!

Are you subsidizing pornography?

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:21:00 +0000

Note: we mistakenly claimed that the magazine Hustler was being sold at PX/BX stores. Hustler is not sold on military bases.

With scientific research demonstrating the serious social and psychological harm that pornography causes, can you stand still while your tax dollars subsidize the most explicit sexual material?

This last week the Lighted Candle Society met with Congressman Paul Broun from Georgia's 10th district. Dr. Broun has introduced a bill in Congress that would prohibit military PX stores from selling pornographic films and magazines. The families of our military, the honor of our servicemen and the dignity of their service to our country deserve more than this.

John Harmer
(Chairman, Lighted Candle Society),
Rep. Paul Broun, and
Rep. Chris Cannon with HR 5821

Currently, PX stores (military base convenient stores) sell explicit materials such as Penthouse and Playboy. Representative Broun's bill (the Military Honor and Decency Act) would remove this material from the shelves.

Please contact your representative and ask them to co-sponsor HR 5821. Click on the box below to get started! It only takes 2 minutes.

The Legacy Law Foundation has agreed to let us use their system to take action on this issue! Many thanks.

QUICK BACKGROUND

Rep. Broun (GA-10) has submitted HR 5821 which would remove pornography from PX and BX shops on military bases. Most products at these shops are subsidized by your tax dollars.

Recent peer reviewed research shows that men who view pornography are 3 times more likely to have an affair. Our military families have a difficult enough time as it is without having to deal with the psychological effects of pornography addiction.

Help support Congressman Broun. Tell your representative to sign on as a co-sponsor of HR 5821.

Supreme Court Victory!

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:26:00 +0000

Supreme Court rules
7-2 in US vs. WIlliams

by Justin Hart

On Monday morning the Lighted Candle Society was participating in a conference about obscenity laws in the United States. Every major pro-family / anti-pornography group was present at the event.

Before I got up to speak I checked the Supreme Court wire and gleefully told the gathered leaders that the Court had ruled 7-2 sustaining current federal anti-child pornography laws and holding that that these laws do not impinge on the first amendment rights. This is a huge decision and affirms, once more, that obscene materials are not covered under the Constitution.

Let's set the stage so you understand the whole story point by point.

In 2002, the Supreme Court struck down two provisions in the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 finding significant abridgment of freedom of speech.
In 2003, Congress passed the PROTECT act which included a pandering and solicitation provision against child pornography.
In 2004, Michael Williams signed into an Internet chat room and struck up a conversation with "Lisa n Miami" (who was in fact a Secret Service agent). Williams posted a note indicating: "�??Dad of toddler has �??good�?? pics of her an [sic] me for swap
of your toddler pics, or live cam.�?? Williams, went on to say he had photographs of men molesting his 4-year-old daughter and demanded pictures from the agent. Williams then got all upset when the agent didn't respond and posted publicly: �??HERE ROOM; I CAN PUT UPLINK CUZ IM FOR REAL�??SHE CANT.�?? He then posted a link to actual child porn.
With that evidence agents obtained an search warrant, seized two hard drives and found at least 22 images of real children engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Apparently, some of it was sadomasochistic.
Williams pled guilty to one count of pandering and one count of possessing child pornography under the PROTECT act but reserved the right to challenge the constitutionality of the pandering conviction.
The District Court rejected his challenge and sentenced Williams to 10 years in prison.
The Eleventh Circuit reversed the pandering conviction holding that the statute was both "overbroad and impermissibly vague"

Next let me review for you the amicus brief which the Lighted Candle Society submitted to the Supreme Court supporting the PROTECT act. We argued three points:

The Eleventh Circuit court misunderstood the market for child pornography. pandering material that is not child pornography as if it is - is a key form of currency in the barter-based child pornography marketplace. Prohibiting pandering is an important part of fighting child pornography.
Pandering is not a form a non-commercial speech and not entitled to full First Amendment protection.
Lastly, we argued that scientific evidence indicates that viewing child pornography is not a form of speech any more than is the use of drugs or the services of a prostitute.

The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, upheld the PROTECT act provision dealing with child pornography. In their decision the judges cited numerous references which we provided in our brief.

We are thrilled to have played even a minor role in this victory!

Here are some highlights from the decision:

Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, kicks it off with our favorite fact on the books: "We have long held that obscene speech�??sexually explicit material that violates fundamental notions of decency�??is not protected by the First Amendment."
The opinion of the court is no less striking: "invalidating a law that in some of its applications is perfectly constitutional�??particularly a law directed at conduct so antisocial that it has been made criminal�??has obvious harmful effects. In order to maintain an appropriate balance, we have vigorously enforced the requirement that a statute�??s overbreadth be substantial." In short, the law does not substantially infringe on freedom of speech.
One important part of the act is qualified in this assessment: "The statute penalizes speech that accompanies or seeks to induce a transfer of child pornography�??via reproduction or physical delivery�??from one person to another." In other words, our fight against child pornography is rightly focused on stopping the actual market producing and consuming this vile.
In case there was any doubt: "In sum, we hold that offers to provide or requests to
obtain child pornography are categorically excluded from the First Amendment."
Then we get this smackdown of the 11th circuit:

The Eleventh Circuit believed it a constitutional diffi-
culty that no child pornography need exist to trigger the
statute. In its view, the fact that the statute could punish
a �??braggart, exaggerator, or outright liar�?? rendered it
unconstitutional. 444 F. 3d, at 1298. That seems to us a
strange constitutional calculus. Although we have held
that the government can ban both fraudulent offers, see,
e.g., Illinois ex rel. Madigan v. Telemarketing Associates,
Inc., 538 U. S. 600, 611�??612 (2003), and offers to provide
illegal products, the Eleventh Circuit would forbid the
government from punishing fraudulent offers to provide
illegal products. We see no logic in that position; if any-
thing, such statements are doubly excluded from the First Amendment.

The Justices also seemed to take our arguments to heart: "There is no First Amendment exception from the general principle of criminal law that a person attempting to commit a crime need not be exonerated because he has a mistaken view of the facts. "
The Justices conclude:

Child pornography harms and debases the most de-
nseless of our citizens. Both the State and Federal
Governments have sought to suppress it for many years,
only to find it proliferating through the new medium of the
Internet. This Court held unconstitutional Congress�??s
previous attempt to meet this new threat, and Congress
responded with a carefully crafted attempt to eliminate
the First Amendment problems we identified. As far as
the provision at issue in this case is concerned, that effort
was successful.

You can read the entire opinion below:

US. vs. Williams - Supreme Court Decision - Get more documents

Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana Pics and Disney

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:30:00 +0000

I have two daughters thirteen and ten. They both love and admire Miley Cyrus, a.k.a. Hannah Montana. My wife and I admire her as well... We bought our daughters tickets to her world tour (which was also borderline inappropriate... but her parents should be just a bit more careful.

Exploitation is the name of the game in the magazine rags and anything that is edgy and nears child pornography is par for the course. See here for more.

The Lighted Candle Society - April Newsletter

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:48:00 +0000

Lighted Candle Society - April Newsletter - Get more documents

Pornography and the Military

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:32:00 +0000

by Justin Hart, VP Communications, Lighted Candle Society

There's a debate going on in Congress and on The Corner about pornography and the military. Arguments from people in the military, in the libertarian square, gov/legal perspective, and the common sense conservative outlook are valuable discussions points but there's another perspective: science.

One of the goals of the Lighted Candle Society is to finance and promote scientific studies into the effects of pornography on the brain and on society. A growing mountain of evidence points to the risks associated with pornography addiction. Later this year we will be conducting our own study using ground breaking fMRI technology to examine the effects on the human noggin'!

We've been collecting some prominent studies here, but here's a quick rundown:

Individuals who have had an extramarital affair are 3.18 times more likely to have used pornography than individuals who did not have affairs.
Young men who are high consumers of pornography are more likely to engage in anal sex, as well as have sexual relations with a friend (i.e. someone with whom they are not in a loving romantic relationship).
People who reported being happily married were 61 percent less likely to report using pornography.
People who have engaged in paid sex (i.e. used prostitution) or had extramarital affairs were three times as likely to have used porn than those who did not.
Pornography consumption is significantly associated with perceptions of emotional infidelity. People also perceive online acts of infidelity as being authentic and real as offline acts.
Married women are more likely to experience distress over a partner's pornography use than are women in dating relationships.
A relationship exists between frequent pornography consumption and sexually aggressive behavior. This relationship is especially strong for those with the highest "predisposing" risk level for sexual behavior.
Results also revealed associations between pornography acceptance and use and emerging adults' risky sexual attitudes and behaviors, substance use patterns, and nonmarital cohabitation values.

To use a common neocon analogy: not all Muslims are terrorists but most terrorists are Muslim. Not all porn addicts are rapist and pedophiles but most (if not all) rapists and pedophiles are porn addicts (see here for a two week example).

Beware the "bag of goods"

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:31:00 +0000

There are two debates raging in congress which have little to do with each other but illustrate the serious misgivings that many have about the "trojan horse" nature of our elected officials.

One debate concerns the question of putting the polar bear on the endangered species list. We all love polar bears but listing this creature on the ESL is just a means to an ends. The back story here essentially dictates that CO2 emissions can be regulated from the Fish and Wildlife department. In short, the effort to save the polar bear is a ruse for a bigger and wider agenda that effects every American.

The second debate (which begins in force tomorrow) pits consumers against themselves in a chicken match of mixed benefits and scary consequences. The notion of "Net Neutrality" has made its way to Capitol Hill. In short, this initiative would mandate that ISPs (Internet Service Providers) provide one set rate and one set speed for all internet users, period. But, here's the trojan horse part again:

On the face of it this seems like a worthy endeavor. After all the entrepreneurial spirit of companies like YouTube and Facebook started garage-style with a simple internet connection. But, the fine print behind this initiative is a bit disconcerting. Essentially, it would prohibit ISPs from regulating or discriminating against any content across their wires. This is where we share some serious concerns with other who oppose Net Neutrality.

With the growing use of advanced technologies (such as Peer-to-Peer and Bit Torrent) eating up bandwidth for the rest of us... one has to ask... what is all that stuff being downloaded? According to one study, over 60% of the bandwidth hogging is all about extreme sexual content.

So, given that Net Neutrality would prohibit ISPs from putting bandwidth hoggers in a separate lane on the information highway and given that Net Neutrality would prohibit groups like the Lighted Candle Society from putting the crunch on porn distributors... I can say this much: I don't like it and I don't trust it.

LCS Interview with AdvanceUSA

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:05:00 +0000

AdvanceUSA, a non-profit organization, recently interviewed Justin Hart, Vice President of Communications for the Lighted Candle Society.

Read the interview here.

From Every Walk of Life Continued...

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:17:00 +0000

The swath of porn-related crimes continues unabated. We bring you (again) a litany of professions and people from every demographic you can imagine.

Note: this doesn't take us very long to do, these cases have been in the news over the past two weeks only:

Bigfoot made me do it

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:18:00 +0000

This about takes the cake for excuses:

Fredericksburg.com - Molester claims he was victim of Bigfoot: "A man who claims that he was molested by Bigfoot as a child was ordered to serve 20 years in prison yesterday for his own molestation-related activities.

Gene R. Morrill, 57, of New Ipswich, N.H., had previously pleaded guilty in Stafford Circuit Court to 20 charges stemming from his efforts to solicit 13-year-old boys over the Internet.

Defense attorney Terrence Patton cited Morrill's mental health issues in seeking leniency from Judge J. Howe Brown.

Morrill told an investigator preparing his pre-sentence report about being sexually assaulted by the legendary Bigfoot, a North American folklore character said to be between 7 and 10 feet tall, and covered in dark brown or dark reddish hair. Patton said Morrill really believes the assaulted happened."

Pink slip for the whistle blower

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:32:00 +0000

"An Obscene Firing"

Its tough enough for people who work and volunteer at schools having to deal with the flurry of child pornography making the rounds on teenager cellphones... but the PC police wreak further havoc on our culture by sticking it to the adults who stand up to perverts.

WND reports in an exclusive piece on a local California woman who was recently fired from her job at the library for reporting the virtual peccadilloes of a patron with a predilection for child pornography. The offender was using a library computer to visit obscene child porn sites on multiple occasions.

Now, if the librarian had maliciously thrown the 23-volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary at the man (which is the instant reaction I would have), one would understand the firing. But no... her crime? Calling the police on the perp.

We'll have more on this soon.

College Campus Debates

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:14:00 +0000

We mentioned previously the shenanigans at Yale, Stanford and William & Mary where a traveling show of "sex workers" try to pass off their wares as art. Kudos to the School Board at W&M who denied President Nichol a second term.

Last week Yale hosted an important debate about pornography with the two traveling debators Craig Gross (pastor at XXXChurch.com) and Ron Jeremy, porn star. If you have a moment, watch the debate, its engrossing and appropriate for each of us to understand what the challenge is.

From Ground Zero to the Family

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:18:00 +0000

First, kudos to Utah Governor Huntsman who earlier this declared February as White Ribbon Against Pornography Month. Our friends at Communities for Decency deserve a lot of credit for seeing this through. Other Utah mayors followed suit. Mayor Mike Daniels of Pleasant Grove recently noted: "Pornography can and will destroy a nation, a state, a city, a neighborhood, a family and an individual if we do not fight it".

Ground Zero

On the other side of the coin, college campuses in North Carolina and Virginia cleared a path for an annual Sex Workers Show. Deemed "art shows" these porn-ivals provide little sanctuary or hope for impressionable college students who are already saturated with promiscuity on campuses. The campus is truly "ground zero" for this growing threat.

Fortunately, some campus leader get it and are working to help students cope with the addictions. The University of Wisconsin recently hosted a forum that many thought was a pro-porn rally. Instead, the audience heard from Michael Leahy, a recovered sex addict. Kudos Michael!

That First Amendment Thing

Of course, reasonable people can object about the intersection of pornography and first amendment (we have the specious and spineless rulings from the Supreme Court to thanks for that). But the evidence of a darker side to pornography is mounting. We take heart to note that younger generations of Christians recognize the issue of Internet pornography as a top priority.

Recently, Spanish experts have concluded that pornography plays a prominent role in the psyche of pedophiles. As we've noted elsewhere, not all porn addicts are rapists and pedophiles but all rapists and pedophiles are porn addicts.

Elsewhere, lawmakers are grappling with various legislative initiatives to thwart these issues. Lawmakers in Florida are considering bills that deal with a "pole" tax, adding a dollar or so to state coffers for live sex shows. Texas just implemented a $5 tax on strip clubs. Utah has added a tax on escort services. Colorado is going down the similar road and a bill in Pennsylvania would tax all pornography.

We believe these are interesting pursuits but there is one HUGE side effect. It legitimizes all of these enterprises. I suppose the pragmatic side of the porn challenge requires us to DO something but we feel that the recent trends to ELIMINATE strip clubs are better in the long run.

Child Pornography

Fortunately, child pornography is something that almost everyone can agree to fight. Flint Waters, a special agent of the Wyoming Internet Crimes Task Force recently used state-of-the-art technology to produce a map for a county in Great Britain showing the breadth of child porn trafficking in their area. We expect the same procedures to become commonplace here in the states. Indeed, many states are making inroads strengthening existing child pornography laws while other groups lobby Congress for funding to battle this epidemic. We also expect higher education panels such as this one to address the problem.

Impact on Families

The impact on families is no less dramatic. One pastor notes the "cheap love" effect in our culture. It's not just "second-hand" pornography at libraries (a great phrase by the way) but the violence that pornography breeds. Our kids our literally the "idols" in this plague which makes raising kids that much harder.

As families turn to professional help the psychiatric field continues to address with the problem in unfortunate ways. Indeed, many professionals still do not recognize the problem. Meanwhile, our entertainment turns more aberrant, industry decisions are deeply influenced by the porn world, and innocent teenage communications turn ugly. The side effects are divorce, debt, and debauchery.

At the Lighted Candle Society, we intend to fight this battle in a two unique ways:

By funding scientific research into the effects of pornography and
By helping to bring civil litigation against producers and distributors of pornography

We've been pretty mum on our approach and our efforts but this will change shortly. Stay tuned!

Other news:

Excellent overview of the online pornography problem
Federal and state agencies are taking a closer look at employee computer habits after a slate of porn problems on computers.
More pedophiles appeal to the Supreme Court. We'll be following this one closely.
Thank you France for this innovation.
AU Teacher keeps job after encouraging students to research pornography.

News from across the porn-o-sphere

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:47:00 +0000

by Justin Hart

I like to start these posts with some positive news:

MySpace

MySpace has agreed with the 50-some-odd Attorney Generals who were knocking at their door: time to get serious about online predators.

You might recall last year a news story where over 10,000 sexual predators were found to have a profile on MySpace. This is not a pretty site.

Fortunately, MySpace has agreed to basic identity checks and age verification to avoid ugly incidents. Other points of the agreement include:

Allow parents to submit children's e-mail addresses to MySpace to prevent anyone from misusing the addresses to set up profiles
Make the default setting "private" for 16- and 17-year-old users
Respond within 72 hours to complaints about inappropriate content and devote more staff and resources to classify photographs and discussion groups
Strengthen software to find underage users
Create a high school section for users under 18 years old

My guess is that other social networking sites will follow suit. Facebook is currently surpassing MySpace on sign-ups. Arm yourself with our free Facebook guide to protect your kids on this popular site.

The results of addiction

If you haven't noticed already we've redesigned the HerStoryLives.com website. The stories told there are both eye-opening and inspiring. The site is a place to share the tragedies and successes that women have experienced in their lives around pornography addiction. The site allows women to anonymously share these stories.

Here's one story you must read: a stark confession of a teenage addict and his road to recovery.

Porn Taxes

A state senator from Pennsylvania is proposing a tax on the production and distribution of pornography. We applaud her efforts.

China cracks down

China has begun to clean up its image before the Olympics opens its doors:

China's authorities shut down 44,000 domestic websites and homepages and arrested 868 people while investigating 524 criminal cases in a campaign against Internet pornography last year, a national teleconference has heard.
Another 1,911 people involved in 1,609 Internet pornography activities were penalized, while the authorities canceled more than 440,000 pornographic messages online.

I'm worried about what happens to those arrested but I applaud their efforts. Note: North Korea is still the largest producer of pornography from what I understand.

The Family Friendly Airwaves

There's a battle afoot to determine what happens with the next band of wireless communications. One group, the Family Research Council, wants to use this spectrum for family friendly communications.

Other Good Reads

J. Matt Barber takes the DOJ to task to failing to enforce obscenity laws.
Brent Bozell takes on a new and popular podcast.
ABCNews investigates the world of amateur pornography. We've noted in the past that the big names in the porn industry are suffering financially because of the massive free pornography efforts afoot. It turns out the money is just shifting.
The Oscars of the porn world happened last week. Quick note from the event: Jenna Jameson is starting her own fragrance and line of clothes.
The porn industry is always ahead of the game when it comes to technology.
The military struggles with the implications of pornography.
Coming to a vending machine near you.

From Every Walk of Life

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:33:00 +0000

by Justin Hart

One of the things we frequently discuss at the Lighted Candle Society is how pervasive the problem of pornography is. Every profession and every walk of life seems to be represented. My job in gathering this information is pretty darn easy. Here's a quick sampling of news items just in the last week.

A Pizzeria owner from Sydney, NY was sentenced to 25 years in prison for raping a 10 year old girl and recording the episode.
Three Virginia High School students are in trouble for sending pornography around the school via cell phones
A Wyoming soldier on leave from military duty was found to have 800 child pornography images in his posession.
A Binghampton, NY bus driver admitted to owning child pornography.
A Toronto after school volunteer, who apparently posed as a clergy, is accused of trading in child pornography.
An ESPN radio broadcaster was found to have 40 hard core videos of child pornography in his home.
An Alabama EMT was sentenced to two life terms after being found guilty of sodomizing a 12 year old and, of course, filming his exploits.
An online internet sting caught a dozen or more people including a former Scout master.

To reiterate, these are instances caught just within the last week or so.

Facebook Guide for Parents

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Hart) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:22:00 +0000

Facebook is a popular interactive website that many kids and adults use to keep in touch with friends and family. It provides an easy way for people to communicate, share information, photos, videos and download information about others. There are many exciting ways to use Facebook but there are also significant pitfalls and dangers, especially for teenagers and children. Parents should know that there are many sexual predators online that utilize websites like Facebook to meet victims. Facebook can be a positive and engaging website if you take measures to protect your children against these dangers.

This guide is intended to help parents educate themselves and their children on how to use this powerful tool and (most importantly) how to guard against the very real hazards that Facebook and other sites present.

CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR FREE COPY