Trivia: Is Adult Pornography Legal?

I'm surprised at how many people don't know whether adult pornography is legal. I say adult pornography as opposed to child pornography because most people realize that child pornography is not legal. As to the legality of adult pornography, a lot of it is illegal.

Under the law, the pertinent legal term is obscenity. And, obscenity is illegal. In Miller, the U.S. Supreme Court defined obscenity as any work that meets the following three criteria:

1) The work appeals to the prurient (sexual) interest,
2) The work depicts or describes in a patently offensive way sexual conduct or excretory functions, and
3) The work lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.

Under this standard, some pornography is not obscene while some pornography is obscene. For a simple example of pornography that is obscene, consider pornography that objectifies and humiliates women. Applying the Miller standard, it can reasonably be argued that pornography which objectifies women is obscene because (1) it appeals to the prurient interests, (2) the objectification demeans women and therefore depicts sexual conduct in an offensive way, and (3) the focus is not literary, artistic, political, or scientific but the focus is simply sexual.

When prosecution actually takes place, the courts readily find that the adult pornography being prosecuting is obscene. Currently, adult obscenity is prosecuted at the federal level by the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force which is housed in the Department of Justice. The task force, which has been operating since the Bush Administration, has not lost once in the hundreds of cases they've prosecuted.

Thus, the current legal standard as defined in Miller as well as contemporary court decisions illustrate that a lot of adult pornography is obscene and consequently illegal. While some adult pornography is legal, there is a lot of adult pornography that is not.

What Percentage of People Are Born Gay?

Homosexuality is highly correlated to childhood abuse. Scientific evidence provides no support that people are born gay.

Among women, 80% of those who have same-sex attraction were abused in some way when a child. Thus, sexual development becomes disrupted. Healthy relationships and trust in males fail to develop.

Among men, many young boys are initially attracted to other boys but as their development progresses, they like women. For some boys, however, this progress does not happen for varied reasons, including sexual encounters with other males. Gay adults who address these issues can many times resume their normal development.

The American Psychological Association has stated that “no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any factor or set of factors. . . . Nature and nurture both play complex roles." Two researchers at Columbia University have said, “The assertion that homosexuality is genetic … must be dismissed out of hand as a general principle of psychology.”

Thus, there is no gay gene. Also, society should be very cautious in normalizing a behavior that many times stems from abuse. For more info and citations go here.

From Gay to Straight

The story of Ms. Pacer is the story of one who was once lesbian and is now straight, a story not too uncommon.

In 2005, The Advocate, a national homosexual magazine, named 17 year-old Kerry Pacer their “Person of the Year” after she successfully took her fight to a U.S. District court to permit the formation of a gay-straight alliance club at her Georgia high school. She claimed it was needed to teach tolerance of lesbians, gays and transgender kids because she had been bullied after having “come out” when she was 12.

Fast-forward four years, and we now learn that Ms. Pacer is living happily with…. her boyfriend and their baby daughter. This real life story doesn’t help the genetic argument for homosexuality. The champion of homosexual tolerance in Georgia high schools, self-declared lesbian and The Advocate’s youngest “Person of the Year” is straight. See full story here.

(Taken from a Yes On Prop 8 email.)