AVN Senior Editor Mark Kernes went undercover, so to say, to get a line or three on what the National Pro-Family Conference on Pornography, Sexually-Oriented Businesses and Material Harmful to Children was up to the weekend of April 14-16. The conference was sponsored by such front-line freedom fighters as Citizens for Community Values - true champions (we're SURE) of the First Amendment. \nMark's second major achievement was getting in and out without being drawn, quartered, and fricasseed. His first was providing the dispatch you are about to read - bravissimo!
\r\nFT. MITCHELL, Ky. - It was a learning experience that should not be missed by any pro-porn activist, even though it quickly became obvious that the leaders knew who I was. At the Friday opening, the conference was attended by approximately 150 people - about half what the religious news services are currently claiming - with only about 100 (mostly hold-overs) remaining for Saturday morning's General Session.
Much in evidence were some of the "leading lights" of the censorship business: Phil Burress, a former plumber and now head of the Citizens for Community Values (CCV); Rev. Jerry Kirk, head of another national group; Donna Rice Hughes, former Gary Hart floozy and now head of Enough Is Enough, which is currently targeting public libraries to install Web filters so that even consenting adults can't look at adult material online; and several others whose names often show up in anti-free speech literature.
However, a promised appearance by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the physiologist with a nationally-syndicated radio advice show, was a no-show, and not even the later-promised "exclusive" videotape of her was anywhere evident.
The conference consisted of four General Sessions and 10 workshops, covering subjects such as targeting Howard Stern's advertisers, a "look inside" a sexually-oriented business (no photos; just a report from the Family Research Council's Jan LaRue); methods to help "victims of pornography," including ex-strippers (that one presided over by an ex-stripper who'd found "the Lord"); how to get rid of "offensive" billboards and how to limit the signage adult businesses can erect on or near their buildings, and several more. Another speaker, who ran an advertising firm, spent more than an hour explaining how to get citizens to "commit" to the cause of getting rid of XXX.
Actually, it wasn't just XXX they were against; most of these people were offended by anything that was remotely sexual, including R-rated movies; Playboy; lots of prime-time TV; fully- and non-fully nude dance clubs (they loved the Erie v. PAP's decision); and, on general principles, anything to do with Cincinnati-"born-again" Larry Flynt. This was, in part, because they had no concept of even the legal differences between hardcore porn and obscenity, a misunderstanding that was not cleared up (nor even attempted to be) even by people who should know better, like Bruce Taylor, a former Justice Department attorney from the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, and now the head of his own censorship group.
In retrospect, I probably should have realized my cover was blown when, during the opening session, Burress mentioned AVN twice in connection with "what the pornographers do," and even projected a copy of one article on the auditorium's movie screen. However, I'd hoped that might just have been coincidence, and that he wouldn't notice my name on the admission badge. No such luck. During the Saturday morning session which "looked inside" sexually oriented businesses, which Burress and LaRue ran, he mentioned something about their mission's "many enemies... even some in this very room." I got the hint.
But apparently it was just the leaders who knew, since the "lay" attendees were nothing if not gracious - pretty much the way any reasonable stranger would react to another. I figure either the leaders thought they were avoiding a riot by not outing me, or (more likely) they didn't want the regular folks to know there was a pornographer in their midst - especially a well-behaved, well-spoken one who most definitely didn't fit the image they'd built up in their followers' minds over the years: short, fat, unshaven, Jewish (can't forget that part) and blowing cigar smoke in everyone's face.
But while the conference leaders tried to maintain the appearance of being reasonable about sexual issues in society, the "devil," as they say, was in the details: side-comments to the faithful when they forgot who was listening, and revealing questions from the audience, which didn't know it had been infiltrated. Those, and many more details and impressions of the conference, will be found in the June issue of AVN.
