The Pro Porn Court?

WYLL.com, NEWSMAX.com, RFMNews.com, FederalObserver.com ^ | 4.17.2002 | Kevin McCullough

[KMC1]

Be afraid, be very very afraid. Last night on Fox News Channel on Brit Hume's Special Report, Brian Wilson reported on the comparison between the new TV show that mimics the Supreme Court and the actual Supreme Court as they both ruled on cases dealing with "virtual child pornography". The TV version voted 7 to 2 in the same direction that the actual Supreme Court voted (6 to 3). It would have been 7 to 2 in the actual had Sandra Day O'Connor taken a little more of her medication that morning.

In Ashcroft vs. Free Speech Coalition (a pornography trade, lobbying, and activist group), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that images can show children having sex, children can be shown in nude or erotic poses, children can perform sexual acts, children can be shown having sex with adults, children can be shown having sex with their own or opposite gender. The only catch - as long as they are not actual children being shown. Sound Confusing? Well it is.

Yesterday's ruling basically opens the way up to allowing pedophilia, child porn, and child molestation to be a major theme of everything from movies to printed materials - as long as they can prove that, the children depicted aren't actually children.

Getting the Court to rule this way obviously thrilled the ACLU and other pro-porn groups across our nation. It obviously deeply cut the groups that are trying to stop one of our nation's most cruel vices from spreading. So what should we expect? More of the same from as best I can see it.

With the publication of the University of Minnesota Press book released three weeks ago promoting the idea that sex between children and adults is just neato keen, and now being followed up with the ruling from this court that children can be made legitimate sexual objects on screen, parents - be afraid, be very very afraid.

Load the shotguns, carry your concealed weapons and suspect every creep that talks to your kids in the grocery store. At the rate the U.S. is going you might just have to shoot someone to literally save the innocence of your own child.

Harsh rhetoric - hardly. Why is the pope this week bringing all the bishops from around the world to meet to discuss the issue of homosexual pedophilia (and a few isolated cases of heterosexual too) amongst the servants of the church? Why is the North American Man Boy Love Association still in business and doing better than ever before? What is the great defense as to why we should not allow children to be sexualized on film - even if adults are playing them or a computer generated them?

(Too be read with a whiny little voice while holding one's nose) "Because we might not get to see films like Traffic or American Beauty." I didn't see Traffic though I am aware that it was nominated for Best Picture the year it came out. But I did see American Beauty which was deemed 'Best Picture'. This little political perverted statement - made through the eyes of a Pretendlander as director - wished to paint the middle class conservative family in America as nothing more than twice adulterating, homophobic, pedophilic, drug addicted, twisted rot. The director's anger against the "right wing" was focused into an attempt to say, "this is how conservative middle class America REALLY lives". Pretendland loved it - that's way they rushed it to the Academy to be deemed "the best of the year". But church going America for the most part yawned as it came and went - it didn't represent most American families - and we knew it.

Pretendland has evidently wielded its logic to the halls of the Supreme Court. But what it has done in the meantime is make every child in America - more vulnerable to the stalking of men who wish to prey on little boys and girls.

I'm sorry Mr. & Ms. Justices of the Supreme Court - but you struck out on this one. Your reasoning was lame. Your decision was even worse.

Maybe you will wear it as a badge of honor that you made child porn the new "fetish du jour", but please take note, you weakened Americans today.

Thank goodness there is that 2nd Amendment! It's there just in case we need to protect ourselves day to day. You may be sitting there saying, "C'mon what's with all the 'protectionism'?" If that's you, well, never mind you won't ever get it anyway. For the rest of you, lock and load, and be very afraid, be very very afraid!

[joathome]

"Pictures of war increases the likelihood of war"

Pictures of people drinking Pepsi increase the liklihood of people drinking....Pepsi? No? Maybe?

Gee, to think of all that ad money going to waste.

[SunStar]

Your mistake is confusing the right of others to take part in uncivilized behavior with suppressing my choice to criticize those acts.

If your intent is to criticize the acts, but you are not disagreeing with the SCOTUS decision, then you and I are in complete agreement. I sometimes find myself defending the indefensible, insofar as to repudiate the need for more laws and restrictions over the people as to what they "are allowed" to possess.

I am in agreement as to the moral decay of such actions.

[joathome]

"Feminazis want to outlaw porn too and believe me its the wussy liberal effeminate men who oppose porn"

Sorry, bud, but there's a number of godly men in this country who are anything but wusses who want to outlaw porn.

[joathome]

"Sex" isn't speech. Period. I believe the Founding Fathers had something a little different in mind than sexual "intercourse" or "oral" sex.

[joathome]

"Why do you believe that this narrowly defined class of speech ought to be protected?"

Why should sex be considered "speech" at all? Did the Founding Fathers cosider it speech?

[weikel]

If they want to outlaw it they are wusses Ill be willing to believe they are manly if they don't watch it but don't support government interference to outlaw it either. You probably think military men are a bunch of nice saintly mammas boy's too.

[general_re]

You're a fast reader. I like that - reminds me of me ;)

"Sex" isn't speech. Period.

So if I draw a picture of two imaginary people having sex, who is having sex, really? Where's the sex in that case?

I believe the Founding Fathers had something a little different in mind than sexual "intercourse" or "oral" sex.

Probably. They probably didn't envision "Car and Driver" either, but that's the nice thing about the universal principles they laid out for us - we can apply them to things they couldn't possibly imagine or predict.

[weikel]

You know I think they are just jealous of Ron Jeremy's penis size.

[tdadams]

Once one is exposed [to pornography], because of the inborn sexual drive, it is like a drug. It creates an addict that is harder to satiate as time goes on.

You seem to be speaking so authoritatively on this. Are you speaking from experience? How do you know how others react to it and are you really comfortable making such a sweeping generalization?

Are you one of those people that feels a compulsion (or perhaps God's calling) to save others from their own lusts and weaknesses?

[UnsinkableMollyBrown]

I have a background in Psychology. I have seen it destroy lives. However, my point is not to save people from themselves. If you had read my initial post carefully, you would realize that my concerns are twofold:
1)Delving into child porn produces an appetite that cannot be quenched with pictures - digital or otherwise.
2)The prosecution of those with possession of child porn is much harder as a result of this ruling. The supreme court in effect diminished the value of photographs and digital files (even if they are of a real child) as evidence.

[FF578]

Why is it that Libertarians appeal to infidels.org and skeptics.com, when both of these sources have been proven to be false. Here are two articles on this verse alone. For some reason infidels.org and skeptics.com don't want to address these.

Almost 1000 years before Jesus set foot on the Earth, the first temple dedicated to Jehovah was built out of Lebanon cedar (the finest there was), costly stones, and pure gold. The Bible indicates that over 183,000 men were involved in the construction of this glorious house of worship during the reign of King Solomon (1 Kings 5:13-16). The vessels that were housed within the temple, and those that remained in the inner court, were equally as elaborate. One of these vessels that stood on the right side of the sanctuary between the altar and the porch of the temple was an immense bronze basin known as “the Sea” (1 Kings 7:23). It was five cubits (7½ feet) high, ten cubits (15 feet) in diameter at the brim, thirty cubits (45 feet) in circumference and rested on 12 bronze oxen (1 Kings 7:23-26, 39; 2 Chronicles 4:2-5,10). Unlike the ten lesser basins that were used to bathe portions of the burnt offerings, the Sea served as a washing pool for the priests (2 Chronicles 4:6). For many years the capacity of the inner court’s large basin known as “the Sea” has been at the center of controversy. The reason: 1 Kings 7:26 indicates that it held 2,000 baths (a bath was the largest of the liquid measures in Hebrew culture; estimates are that it corresponds to anywhere from 4½-9 U.S. gallons). However, 2 Chronicles 4:5 says that the Sea held 3,000 baths. Thus, critics of the Bible’s inerrancy have charged that a blatant contradiction exists and that such lack of agreement discredits divine authorship.

There are at least three possible solutions to this alleged contradiction. First, the answer could be that a copyist, while attempting to ensure a “carbon copy” of the manuscript from which he was working, made an error. [For a general background on copyists’ errors, please see our foundational essay on that subject.] Keil and Delitzsch, in their commentary on 2 Chronicles, indicated their support of this theory. They tend to believe that the number 3,000 given in 2 Chronicles 4:25 has arisen from the confusion of the letter gimel (Hebrew transliterated letter-number for “3”) with beth (Hebrew transliterated letter-number for “2”). By a comparison of the two Hebrew letters, it easily is seen that their shape is quite similar. Even a tiny smudge from excessive wear on a scroll-column or a slightly damaged manuscript could have resulted in making the gimel look like a beth. With such an adjustment, the statements in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles are harmonized easily. However, it very well may be that this is not a copyist’s error at all.

A second possible explanation to this alleged contradiction revolves around a Hebrew word used in 2 Chronicles 4:5 that does not appear in 1 Kings 7:26. Whereas in 1 Kings it says that the molten Sea “held” (ASV) 2,000 baths, 2 Chronicles says that it “received (Hebrew machaziyq) and held three thousand baths” (ASV, emp. added). The difference in phraseology may indicate that the Sea ordinarily contained 2,000 baths, but when filled to its utmost capacity it received and held 3,000 baths (Haley, 1951, p. 382). Thus, the chronicler informs the reader that 3,000 baths of water were required to completely fill the Sea, which usually held 2,000 baths (Barnes). Anyone who has ever been around large pools of water (like a swimming pool) knows that the pool actually can hold a few thousand gallons of water more than generally is kept in it. It very well may be that the wording in 2 Chronicles indicates such a difference about the water level in the Sea.

A third possible solution to this “problem passage” is that the “bath” unit mentioned in 1 Kings was larger than the “bath” unit used in 2 Chronicles. Since the latter account was written after the Babylonian exile, it is quite possible that reference is made to the Babylonian bath, which might have been less than the Jewish bath used at the time of Solomon. As Adam Clarke observed: “The cubit of Moses, or of the ancient Hebrews, was longer than the Babylonian by one palm…. It might be the same with the measures of capacity; so that two thousand of the ancient Jewish baths might have been equal to three thousand of those used after the captivity.” In considering a modern-day example, a 20% difference exists between the U.S. gallon and the Imperial gallon, even though the same term is used for both quantities. Thus, this alleged discrepancy may be simply a misunderstanding on the part of 21st-century readers.

The fact of the matter is that critics of the Bible cannot prove that this is a legitimate contradiction. Second Chronicles could represent a copyist’s error. On the other hand, I believe that one of the last two explanations represents a more plausible solution to the problem: either (1) the addition of the Hebrew word machaziyq (“received”) in 2 Chronicles 4:5 means that the Sea could actually hold 3,000 baths (though it normally held 2,000 baths); or (2) the “bath” unit used during the time of Solomon was larger than the one used after the Jews were released from Babylonian captivity. Until one can prove that these three solutions are not possibilities, he should refrain from criticizing the Bible’s claim of divine inspiration.

In 1 Kings 7:23 there is an intriguing statement:

‘And he [Hiram on behalf of King Solomon] made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.’

A similar account is given in the parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 4:2.

From time to time, sceptics have used these verses to ridicule the accuracy of the Bible by claiming that, if one uses the figures stated, the circumference of the vessel divided by its diameter gives 3.0, instead of pi (p), which is 3.14159 …1

Closer examination shows there are at least two possible explanations.

1. The first concerns the meaning of the word ‘cubit’, and how it would have been used in measuring the vessel. A cubit was the length of a man’s forearm from the elbow to the extended fingertips. The Hebrew cubit was about 45 centimetres (18 inches). It is obvious that a man’s forearm does not readily lend itself to the measurement of fractions of a forearm. In the Bible half a cubit is mentioned several times, but there is no mention of a third part of a cubit or a fourth part of a cubit, even though these fractions of ‘a third part’ and ‘a fourth part’ were used in volume and weight measurements.2 It therefore seems highly probable that any measurement of more than half a cubit would have been counted as a full cubit, and any measurement of less than half a cubit would have been rounded down to the nearest full cubit.

From 1 Kings 7:23 (‘a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about’), it appears that the circumference was measured with ‘a line’, i.e. a piece of string or cord on which the distance was marked, and this length would then have been measured off in cubits by the measurer, using his own or someone else’s forearm, or possibly a cubit-long rod. Similarly the diameter would have been marked on a line and ‘cubitized’ in the same way.

If the actual diameter was 9.65 cubits, for example, this would have been reckoned as 10 cubits. The actual circumference would then have been 30.32 cubits. This would have been reckoned as 30 cubits (9.6 cubits diameter gives 30.14 circumference, and so on). The ratio of true circumference to true diameter would then have been 30.32 ¸ 9.65 = 3.14, the true value for p, even though the measured value (i.e. to the nearest cubit) was 30 ¸ 10 = 3.

While the above seems reasonable, we have no way of knowing for certain whether the measurements were approximated in this way. However, even if it is assumed that the measurements given were precisely 10 and 30 cubits, the following appears to provide a definitive answer.

2. Verse 26 of 1 Kings 7 says that the vessel in question had a brim which ‘was wrought like the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies’ (KJV), or a rim ‘like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom’ (NIV), i.e. the brim or rim turned outward, suggesting the curvature of a lily.3 It is believed by Bible scholars to have looked like the drawing below.

Let us consider the details given in 1 Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2. These are:

1. The diameter of 10 cubits was measured ‘from brim to brim’ (v. 23), i.e. from the topmost point of the brim on one side to the topmost point of the brim on the other side (points A and B in the diagram).

2. The circumference of 30 cubits was measured with a line, ‘round about’ (v. 23), i.e. the most natural meaning of these words is that they refer to the circumference of the outside of the main body of the tank, measured by a string pulled tightly around the vessel below the brim. It is very obvious that the diameter of the main body of the tank was less than the diameter of the top of the brim. And it is also obvious that the circumference of 30 cubits could have been measured at any point down the vertical sides of the vessel, below the brim. For a measured circumference of 30 cubits, we can calculate what the external diameter of the vessel would have been at that point from the formula:

diameter = circumference ¸ p

= 30 cubits ¸ 3.14

= 9.55 cubits.

Thus the external diameter of the vessel at the point where the circumference was measured must have been 9.55 cubits.5

It is thus abundantly clear that the Bible does not defy geometry with regard to the value of p, and in particular it does not say that p = 3.0. Skeptics who allege an inaccuracy are wrong, because they fail to take into account all the data. The Bible is reliable, and seeming discrepancies vanish on closer examination. [See also Does the Bible Give a Wrong Value for Pi? from Tekton Apologetics Ministry.]

References and Footnotes

p, or the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, is what has been known as an irrational number or infinite non-repeating decimal, of which the first digits are 3.1415926536 …. A value of 3.14 is close enough for our purposes. Return to text.

Abingdon’s Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Return to text.

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia 4:368, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids (Michigan), 1988. Return to text.

Adapted from reference 3. An NIV footnote (not part of the inspired text) to 1 Kings 7:26 suggests that the vessel had a greater volume than the above figures allow. This could indicate that the vessel may have been shaped more like a lily than imagined (i.e. part of it may have been bulbous), or that the conversion factor used by the NIV commentator was incorrect. Return to text.

Some have suggested that there is one other explanation that fits all the dimensions given in the biblical text, if the circumference measured refers to the inside of the vessel. (This is a possibility, although, as already stated, it was most likely the external circumference which was measured.) The diameter was 10 cubits or 4.50 metres, the circumference was 30 cubits or 13.50 metres, and the walls were ‘a hand breadth thick’ (verse 26) or 10 centimetres (to the nearest centimetre).6 If the diameter of 4.50 metres was the outside measurement, we subtract 10 centimetres x 2 (to allow for the thickness of the wall on either side) to arrive at a figure of 4.30 metres for the internal diameter of the vessel, and we can now calculate the internal circumference using the formula:

circumference = diameter x p

= 4.3 metres x 3.14

= 13.50 metres

= 30 cubits

which is exactly the figure given in 1 Kings 7:23. But as shown, there is no need to resort to this solution.Return to text.

The New Encyclopædia Britannica, 5:677, 1992. Return to text.

[a_witness]

I'm sorry Mr. & Ms. Justices of the Supreme Court - but you struck out on this one. Your reasoning was lame. Your decision was even worse. Maybe you will wear it as a badge of honor that you made child porn the new "fetish du jour", but please take note, you weakened Americans today.

What we really really need
is to publicly shame, humiliate, and remove from the court
the Shameful Six Sexual Predator Justices
Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer, Thomas, and O'Connor.

How we do that I don't know.
I only know we need to do it.
This country is sick and they are a cancer that needs to be removed. I suppose a constitutional amendments would be the usual course but I wonder if Roosevelt's way was correct. What is the remedy against a Gang of Six hijacks the Constitution from the American people ?

[general_re]

What is the remedy against a Gang of Six hijacks the Constitution from the American people ?

Amend the Constitution. Good luck.

[FF578]

You know what, the more I hear you talk I think you are some teenage DU Reject.

You claim that anyone who wants to outlaw porn is a "Wuss" or a limp-wristed girly man. You make the statement that we who want to outlaw porn think that the military is made up of nice people.

Well, let me tell you a little about myself. I am a former Soldier in the US Army, I was a Cannon Crewman (13B)so I actually know what the military was about.

I am a competitive Martial Artist. I was the 1998 Silver Medalist at the PA State Judo Championships. I hold a Black Belt in Tang Soo Do, and I train in Judo, Wrestling, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I compete in Mixed Martial Arts Fighting Matches where I am undefeated.

I am willing to bet that I know more about hard road of life than you do. Just because I believe in a Higher Authority, and that society must conform to the laws of Almighty God, that does not make me a liberal, "wuss" or a limp-wristed girly man.

There are many soldiers from previous times who would feel the same way about porn and immorality that I do. The world isn't full of libertarian hedonists who are obsessed with immoral behavior. You really need to get a grip on life.

I have actually defended this country. What about you?

[FF578]

Well you can always resort to plan B. Everytime a Sex-Offender/Pervert gets caught with child-porn, virtual or not, he can always "fall down" when he attempts to resist arrest.

[a_witness]

Amend the Constitution. Good luck.

They have hijacked the Constitution. How can we amend it ?

[a_witness]

You probably think military men are a bunch of nice saintly mammas boy's too.

I never heard of child pornography when I was active duty. Of course, President Reagan was CIC then. He would have gone over their heads to the American people. Why is Bush silent ? I appreciate AG Ashcroft's comments but Enough is Enough !

[general_re]

Ah. If both houses of Congress pass a proposed amendment by a 2/3 vote, and 3/4 of the state legislatures ratify the amendment, then that amendment becomes part of the Constitution. Alternately, if Congress refuses to consider an amendment, then if 2/3 of the state legislatures vote to call for a Constitutional Convention, a convention is called for purposes of proposing amendments. If potential amendments that are passed by the convention are then ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures, or by conventions in 3/4 of the states, those amendments become part of the Constitution. The courts (and the Executive) have no say in the matter.

[weikel]

But I bet some of your buddies looked at dirty mags I don't look at childporn either( and I know your a good guy and supporter of Israel and you know I'm a good guy to so lets not have a flamewar).

[weikel]

I believe you on your credentials but as for god you argue events displease him I ask you this why would god create a Universe displeasing to him.