Free Republic

The Republican Party’s platform committee declared war on pornography ahead of this week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. In a Monday morning press release, advocacy group Morality in Media revealed that “new language replaces previous platform wording, which only opposed child pornography.” According to MIM, the new wording will read, “Current laws on all forms of pornography and obscenity need to be vigorously enforced.” The party platform was drafted by a 112-member committee and will be unveiled early this week. Existing obscenity laws “not only prohibit distribution of hardcore pornography on the Internet but also on hotel/motel TV, on...

According to an Associated Press story (T. El-Tablawy, “Porn offers window into Iraq's chaotic politics”) released August 23, 2010, “Change...is afoot in Iraq. Hundreds of porn DVDs are stacked elbow deep...on a table...on a downtown sidewalk.” The story continues: “Its reemergence...reflects how security has improved but also how the fragile government is busy with more pressing issues than spicy videos.” The story also observes that “with the Western troops and their supporting army of foreign security contractors came the porn once strictly forbidden under Saddam's regime” and that the titles of many videos now available, “along the lines of ‘The...

Are we on the threshold of seeing hardcore porn on prime time TV? Very possibly so, if we follow the logic of New York Post columnist Jacob Sullum. On July 24, 2010 in a column entitled “The trouble with outlawing porn,” Jacob Sullum, supported two recent federal court decisions, one of which invalidated the FCC’s broadcast indecency law enforcement policy, and the other of which dismissed obscenity charges against a commercial distributor of hardcore pornography. Sullum said the cases “show that prohibiting vaguely defined categories of speech undermine the rule of law as well as freedom of expression.” Full article...

Resolution calls for laws to protect rights of conscience for medical personnel.Delegates to the 125th annual convention of the Knights of Columbus Thursday, Aug. 9, unanimously adopted a resolution on Building a Culture of Life reaffirming its “deep commitment to oppose any governmental action or policy that promotes abortion, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, euthanasia, assisted suicide and other offenses against life.”The resolution, adopted during the final session of the convention at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, also called for “the adoption of laws that recognize and protect in law the right of conscience for doctors, nurses,...