WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Defense Department will allow items that some groups deem as pornographic material to be sold on its military bases. In 1996, Congress passed a law prohibiting the sale of sexually explicit material on bases, but it is up to the military to decide what it constitutes as obscene.
Worried about the subjectivity of this definition, some ultra-conservative groups such as Focus on the Family and the Alliance Defense Fund wrote to military officials questioning its policy.
“About 40 pro-family leaders sent a letter to [Defense] Secretary Gates asking that he enforce the law," Pat Trueman of the Alliance Defense Fund, told right wing news organization, Family News in Focus.
The Defense Department responded to the inquiries by declaring that certain magazines — including Playboy and Penthouse — did not violate its definition of obscenity and could be sold on military bases.
Predictably, conservative groups are angry about what they see as the military’s lenient policy. “If you’re going to find that Penthouse is not sexually explicit, you really need to find out who’s on this review board making these decisions,” Daniel Weiss, senior analyst of media and sexuality for Focus on the Family Action, told Family News in Focus.
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