Vega \nMONTGOMERYVILLE, FL - A church here received a slightly unlikely supporter for its anti-pornography program: the daughter of Hustler founder and publisher Larry Flynt.
"I like to tell people that pornography is not about free speech," Tonya Flynt-Vega told the congregation Sunday morning. "I'm using my First Amendment right to speak out against pornography. We have to stand up as communities and say we're not going to tolerate it."
In fact, she has created a foundation dedicated to stopping pornography and child abuse, according to the Philadelphia Enquirer.
"My father says there are no victims of pornography," Flynt-Vega told the congregation of Crossroads Community Church. "I say I'm living proof that there is. . . . Pornography is an addiction. I was addicted to it, my father's addicted to it. It's just like a drug."
Flynt-Vega says said her father's addiction to pornography led to sexually abusing her. She formed the Tonya Flynt Foundation under the belief that sexual abuse and rape are directly linked to pornography, the Enquirer says.
Flynt has denied abusing his daughter.
"Right up the road (from our church) is a topless bar. A couple of minutes from the bar is an adult bookstore. It's right here," said Dan LaValla, a church leader who invited Flynt-Vega to the church after hearing her on a radio show.
A therapist by profession, he says he says marriages are threatened because one spouse is getting hooked on pornography. "With the explosion of the Internet, it's becoming more of an issue," he said. "It's in corporate America, it's in communities. I think she'll have some tips on how we can deal with it in our own community."
Flynt-Vega told the congregation she saw her father infrequently and, when she did, he "seduced me, manipulated me and molested me. He taught me that was love.
"I can't tell you the damage that these experiences did to my body, to my sexuality," she continued, adding she turned to drugs and became promiscuous finding faith in God, the Enquirer says.
