Posted on 08/28/2003 8:57:02 AM PDT by truthandlife
Two large entertainment companies have filed for bankruptcy-court protection under Chapter 11 of federal IRS regulations. While both companies filed at different times -- Penthouse in August 2003 and Wherehouse Entertainment in January 2003 -- they have one thing in common: both are purveyors of pornography.
Penthouse, published by General Media, Inc., has seen circulation of its porn magazine fall from nearly five million per month to current levels of about one-tenth that amount. Wherehouse Entertainment has closed close to 120 stores, but still has almost 250 locations open. Wherehouse attributes much of its financial demise to the weaknesses in the CD music business. But both companies can probably point to the popularity of the Internet as the cause for their companies' financial woes.
While Wherehouse mainly stocks mainstream CDs, games, and videos, it is generally known by many Southern California pro-family activists to be a large retailer and renter of hard-core porn videos. Sylvia Sullivan, president of East County CRA, once picketed the Wherehouse outlet in Chula Vista because it offered hard-core porn videos. Of the retailer's financial troubles, she states: "It is always good news when morally bankrupt smut peddlers find themselves also financially bankrupt. However, this battle has just begun as those who push perversion seek to bring it directly into our homes via the computer and television."
Saddened by the fall of his company, General Media chairman and Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione told Poynter Online that "the future has definitely migrated to electronic media." In an effort to distinguish itself from its long time rival Playboy, Penthouse in 1997 turned to a more hard-core venue -- and with the increase of free hard-core (banner) pornography* on the Internet, Penthouse began to slowly see its subscription base decrease.
Former FBI agent William P. Kelly, once referred to as one of "J. Edgar Hoover's sunshine boys" by Guccione apologist Philip Nobile, was expectantly happy to hear about Penthouse's demise. Kelly says the magazine has had "a degenerative moral effect on the country as a whole." Many pro-family advocates agree, including Adlai Mack and Sewell Dunton.
Mack, senior pastor of Christians United Church of San Diego, likens sexual perverts and pornographers to "dogs." According to Mack, "pornography cheapens marriage by cheapening women and men, thereby equating them to wild animals."
Dunton, a life skills teacher at Grossmont Union High School in El Cajon, California, believes that "eventually truth will win out" -- adding that while they do not know it yet, "pornographers are already on the downward spiral because they are morally bankrupt."
In spite of this news, the porn industry continues to expand its reach and influence through the Internet. However, just a few days ago, insiders close to the Bush Administration were informed that the Justice Department is currently investigating 49 adult obscenity cases, some of which involve "large producers and distributors" as well as providers of "more mainstream [hard-core] content." Such investigations have not occurred within the Justice Department for more than nine years.
These investigations should be encouraging to parents who in, the 1970s and 1980s, saw the negative effects that pornographic magazines -- like Penthouse -- and hard-core video pornography -- like that offered by Wherehouse -- had on the culture. Internet porn has now changed that.
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