Slightly mislead topic here, but, I think, the end result is going to lead to the censorship of comics. This article was posted on Newsarama.
*************
When the American Family Association went after the Western Pennsylvania office of the Make a Wish foundation because they collected monies form the Pittsburgh Comic-Con which, (according to the AFA) was a haven for pornography, it seemed like an isolated event. Then the group went after the Motor City Convention. Dangerous times for comics? Maybe.
The AF Who?
The AFA is a group formed in 1977 by the Reverand Donald E. Wildmon to promote traditional family values (read: generally conservative and Christian values) in the media. Historically, the group has targeted any and everything it considers pornography, the “homosexual agenda,” pro-choice groups, gambling, and promotion of any religion other than Christianity. Currently, the group is espousing boycotts against Disney (for their promotion of the “homosexual agenda”), a law requiring “In God we trust” to be put in every classroom in the country, a boycott of Kmart (for selling CDs with offensive content), placing content filters on computers at public libraries to prevent patrons from viewing “offensive content,” and of course, eliminate government funding of the National Endowment for the Arts.
According to the AFA’s website and information released, representatives from the group attended the Pittsburgh Comic-Con, and attended Casino Night, the benefits of which went to the Make-A-Wish foundation.
At the convention, the AFA member saw what she considered pornography and material unsuitable for minors being displayed in public areas, as well as adult models. The AFA issued an alert to its membership, and the membership responded, sending 15,000 e-mails to the Western PA chapter of Make-A-Wish, doing something that has come to be called “astroturfing” due to the way it artificially (individuals motivated by a specific organization with an agenda, and generic “complaint” e-mails or phone scripts provided to the membership) resembles a grass roots movement. Currently, the AFA website offers visitors several pre-written e-mails that they can "sign," and the AFA e-mail server will send for them.
Part of the AFA’s alert to its members read:
Randy Sharp, director of special projects for American Family Association, says, "The WPA/SWV Make-A-Wish Foundation has been asked to reject any money raised at the convention because of its close ties to the porn industry. Obviously, its not a problem issue with them."
Sharp says, "It is ironic that Make-A-Wish fulfills the dreams of children with life-threatening illnesses, but uses money from an industry that devalues women and shatters families."
Reportedly, the Make-A-Wish offices received over 15,000 e-mails (convention organizers reported that only 8 and 10,000 people attended the event), but according to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, the chapter did not buckle, and said they would continue their partnership with the Comic-Con, leading the AFA to report: “Make-A-Wish defends chapter’s porn convention proceeds.”
Responding to the Post Gazette’s request for a comment, the AFA’s campaign against the Make-A-Wish foundation aimed at the heart of any charity – public trust. “How can families trust an organization that readily accepts money that has been gleaned from a porn-laden event?” asked Diane Gramley, president of the AFA’s office in Northwestern PA. (Gramley attended the event and filed the report with the AFA).
While the matter was chilling in and of itself, it proved to be more than just a one-time thing at the Motor City Con in Detroit, where the AFA again went after an associated charity, this time the Muscular Dystrophy Association. While the groups’ attempts in Pittsburgh met with defiance from the charity, in Detroit, the MDA folded quickly, and advised the convention organizers to remove the MDA’s name from all materials and the convention’s website. The MDA declined to have any participation with the event.
Representatives from both the MDA and the Western PA chapter of the Make-A-Wish foundation declined to comment on the respective incidents when asked by Newsarama.
The moves by the AFA in both Pittsburgh and Detroit, while indicative of the AFA’s agenda against what they consider pornography (the group recently declared a victory when Wal-Mart announced that were pulling Maxim, Stuff and FHM from their shelves due to customer complaints – an earlier target of the group), they market the first time in recent memory that the group has taken direct action against the comic industry.
However, the AFA has had its eye on the industry for some time. An excerpt from a January 2003 AFA Journal report, warning parents against the content in comic books by Ed Vitagliano reads:
Inside the pages of Image Comics’ Laura Croft Tomb Raider, for example, are advertisements for trading cards from the popular comic book series Witchblade. The ad shows sensual, nearly naked woman posing as if for Playboy. Such sexual imagery is found throughout comic series such as The Darkness, Darkchylde and WildStorm – the latter of which even puts out a “swimsuit issue” of bikini-clad women. Industry catalogs like Previews are filled with such images.
Along with this hedonistic view of sexuality in comics comes a promotion of homosexuality. In a two-part Green Lantern comic, published by DC Comics, “gay” teenager Terry Berg is shown kissing his boyfriend. After three thugs beat Terry, the storyline turns into a blatant promotion of hate crime laws.
A variety of comic books have promoted the “gay” agenda, including DC Comics’ The Authority and Superman, and Marvel’s The Incredible Hulk, Alpha Flight, The Flash, Uncanny Xmen and Star Fleet Academy.
Beyond violence and sexuality, however, is the false religious atmosphere within the worlds created by comic books. The super powers of both heroes and villains often appear little different from powers associated with the occult, and any positive portrayal of religion is usually from a New Age perspective.
These ideas are not limited to storylines. For example, the last page of one issue of Eek! The Cat was a full-page primer on the “underlying principles of Hinduism and Buddhism.” Kids could turn the page and read that the principle of “karma” holds that “a person’s actions in this life account for the soul’s ultimate purification and ability to transmigrate to a higher plane of existence.”
Of course, the one religion to be openly disrespected is always Christianity. In a January 2003, issue of Marvel’s Uncanny Xmen, the blue-skinned Nightcrawler is shown in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, railing against Jesus Christ. The cover of the comic shows Nightcrawler, who has a distinctly demonic appearance, perched on a cross.
While the group’s actions have raised the ire of many online comic readers, Charles Brownstein, head of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is watching it all unfold with one eye on the future and one on the past.
”All I can really say is that I’m not surprised,” Brownstein said. “If you’ve been watching the news wires over the last couple of months, you’ll notice that incidents against pornography are on the rise. In April there was a porn studio in LA that was raided by federal agents from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. 47 Federal agents raided them, as well as postal inspectors and LAPD. It was basically a small army that hit them. Their offices were shut down, and the agents pulled all their business records for the sake of five titles that were named in a complaint.
“That is happening alongside another bust in Ohio in March, where a convenience store manager or owner was charged with peddling obscenity for selling porn videos in his store. While this is going on, there’s legislation coming in about attacking child pornography, most prominently, the Protect Act.”
The Climate Under the Protect Act
The Protect Act, the quieter cousin to the Amber Alert bill seeks to legislatively reverse the Supreme Court’s decision of Ascroft vs. Free Speech Coalition that said virtual child pornography is not illegal.
The Act goes right to the heart of the Supreme Court decision, changing the current law, and adding: “NONREQUIRED ELEMENT OF OFFENSE- It is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exist.”
The above refers to "virtual" child pornography, wherein an individual creates realistic images of children engaged in sexual acts, and not an individual imagining it. Thoughtcrime is still fiction - for now.
[Unneeded but probably necessary disclaimer: Newsarama does not in any way condone child pornography. Newsarama also does not condone laws which paint with a very broad brush and can later be used in a manner the authors never intended, i.e., if one “virtual” crime is illegal, why not another?]
Also, the new provisions of the Protect Act now place the burden of proof upon the “pornographer” not the government, in determining whether the alleged child pornography is illegal or not.
And yes, “placing the burden of proof upon the charged” is another way of saying “guilty until proven innocent,” rather than the reverse assumption, which is what the American legal system is built upon.
Oh, and there’s more.
“There’s another provision in there that’s more frightening that says the visual depiction that leads one to believe that minors are engaged in obscene sexual behavior is illegal, whether or not an actual minor is involved,” Brownstein said. “Once again, the way the law is written, a film like American Beauty is potentially prosecutable as child pornography.”
Right – let’s cut the argument off at the knees. Something like an Oscar-winning film clearly has artistic merit, right? That depends upon who is looking at it.
As the bill’s wording states, the following person is a criminal under the new law: “Any person who, in a circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly possesses a visual depiction of any kind [showing alleged child pornography], including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that…lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
“Lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value?” Isn’t that what all of our mothers said about comics in the first place when we were kids? It certainly seems to be what the AFA is saying about them.
Brownstein pointed out the problem even when the argument is made that the work in question has clear artistic merit. “Now you have to go to court, and prove your innocence first, not defend yourself against charges, but prove your innocence. The way that the law is written, it is a guilty until proven innocent scenario.
“The other thing that the Protect Act has is a provision that says any misleading website domain name that will lead the viewer to pornography is illegal, so they’re targeting things like whitehouse.com. But the question is – what exactly is misleading? if, for the sake of argument,
www.ModernTales.com runs an autobiographical story by Ariel Schrag about being 15 and discovering lesbian sex, does that fall under this provision? Or for that matter, Patrick Farley’s
www.e-sheep.com frequently uses nudity for narrative, or aesthetic effect. Is e-sheep .com a ‘misleading’ domain name?”
And shades of “if your mommy is a Commie, then you gotta turn her in,” the Act also sets up a provision where the government will set up a cyber tip line. This way, anonymous citizens can send e-mail to the government, reporting a site that has what they consider to be child pornography. How this will be executed remains to be seen, but consider this affect it could have on the industry – a comics website displays a cover to a new comic book. Said comic book has a youthful looking person on it, in a revealing outfit. A concerned citizen reports it, and now the site (and ultimately, by extension, the comic’s publisher) is under investigation of distributing child pornography.
Kiddie Porn? Weren’t We Talking About Comic Book Conventions?
”The reason I bring all of this up is that what I’ve been noticing over the last two months is that there are a lot more incidents pertaining to the prosecution of pornography,” Brownstein said. “It strikes me as something to be concerned about that these attacks on the comics field are coming in that climate. These are something that are on the rise, and I’m not at all shocked to see the AFA, who, honestly, do something like this every couple years, coming after the comic shows. I think it’s important to bear in mind that it’s all part of a bigger picture.”
With two attempts, and one victory under their belt, it’s unclear if the AFA will be emboldened to move on to bigger targets, or will be satisfied to let their influence over the MDA in Michigan speak for them in regards to other charities. As mentioned earlier, charities depend upon the public trust for continued contributions and operations, and, as was seen in the case at Motor City, the MDA took the safer of the two roads – continue to appeal to a distinct group that will (assumedly) continue to give them money.
If any charity needs an example of what could happen if they piss off (either in reality, or in a group’s perception) a chunk of people by associating themselves with a convention or industry that (in the group’s eyes) promotes pornography, a they need look no farther than the Dixie Chicks, whose CD sales tanked after singer Natalie Maines’ comments about George Bush. The comments caused a significant number of the group’s fans to not buy the CD, leading, at its worst, to talk that the comments had killed the group’s career.
A charity needs to maintain the good will of the public, and must weigh very carefully anything that will threaten that, again, either real, perceived, or manufactured by a group claiming to represent a majority of their donors.
Back to the comics industry itself, Brownstein admits that, in his view, comics as a whole must look like a tempting target to groups like the AFA.
“If you read the Pittsburgh report, you’ve got to realize that you can’t confront them with reason,” Brownstein said. “They automatically presume that because it’s a comic show, and comics are for kids, these are venues where 12 year olds will behold a treasure trove of pornography and become users of pornography and ruin their lives forever. Comic shows are pretty easy targets, and I see this trend continuing.”
But, to be completely fair, some conventions make themselves easy targets for this type of action by groups such as the AFA. As comic book conventions seek out large enough audiences to maintain profitability, many have moved to pulling in media guests other than those with more or less direct comic and science fiction connections, such as Playboy Playmates, adult film stars, and models.
At the shows themselves, the models often wear outfits that don’t leave anyone wondering why they were in their chosen profession. It’s a facet of comic book conventions that many fans have noticed in recent years – many shows that were once, or continue to promote themselves as “family friendly” really aren’t.
When a convention does this, and advertises the guests, hoping to attract a young male demographic, it’s no great surprise that a member of the AFA or any associated group can plunk down their $20 for a day and take a tour, with the intent of shutting the place down.
“It’s interesting to see them targeting the charities that benefit form comic shows” Brownstein said. “It’s the same strategy that they use when they try to get a local convenience store to take porn of the shelves – inundate them with e-mail or letters that either explicitly or indirectly state that they will stop patronizing the business or donating to the charity. Fortunately, the AFA’s actions hasn’t seemed to have adverse effects on the Pittsburgh or Detroit shows themselves yet, although I’m very disappointed to see the MDS cave so quickly.”
And Bringing it All Home
To the stores that is.
“I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I don’t think it’s a short stretch to figure that once this group is already thinking of comics, one of these group members is going to visit a comic book store and then discover that, ‘Oh my God, they have an adult material section!’ or even worse, look at the cover of Mystique #1, decide that’s pornography, and call the police,” Brownstein said. “And then, we go back to Jesus.”
Castillo, not Christ – the Texas comic shop employee who was convicted of selling obscene material, even though he sold it to an adult (albeit an undercover cop). Yes – selling an adult comic to an adult – a criminal offense in Texas. Currently, the case is waiting for a decision from the Supreme Court as to whether or not they will hear it and possibly overturn the Texas courts decisions.
If something like what Brownstein outlined above would happen before Jesus went to the Supreme Court, or if the Supreme Court would refuse to even hear Jesus (stop laughing – we’re talking about Castillo), the case would stand as precedent. Now that that precedent has been set, the prosecution’s burden is waaaay lighter. All they would have to do in such as case is point to the Castillo case, sketch out the similarities, look at the jury and smile. The defense would have to argue, in essence, two or three cases – why the Castillo verdict and appeal was wrong, why it doesn’t apply in this case, and, “Oh yeah, by the way, because of all of that, my client is innocent.”
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Well, okay, it’s maybe doom, but not quite gloom – yet. “Jesus was almost a technical win thanks to a pretty boneheaded jury decision where they pretty much decided that comics are for kids, and as such are obscene if they contain any adult material at all,” Brownstein said. “So I think that whatever the next Jesus is going to be, it will be pretty easy to win as long as the retailers are doing their job right – not selling to minors and segregating the materials.
“But that said, again, I have to urge caution. All an AFA member has to do is look at the stories about the conventions, walk into a comic shop, and decide that something as innocuous as Elektra or Wonder Woman is pornography because it has a woman walking around in a bathing suit, and get their ball rolling.”
It all goes back to retailers being careful. The skies are cloudy and menacing right now. Don’t go outside carrying a flagpole. People survive lighting storms all the time - by being prepared.
”It’s nothing to be worried about – yet,” Brownstein said. “But, convention organizers, dealers, and retailers have basically been put on notice, and should be aware of what’s going on so that when these people come into their hall or store. If anyone comes in, the dealer, convention organizer or retailer has to have an iron-clad defense: adult material has to be segregated. IDs have to be checked to sell adult material. You can’t do anything after it leaves the show or the store, but you cannot be a party to this material getting into eh hands of minors.
“The Pittsburgh convention organizers did the right thing in pointing out that Pittsburgh is a big town and nobody at the show was doing anything wrong,” Brownstein said. “Of course, to these groups, it will never appear that way, but there was nothing illegal about any of it. Proceed with caution but awareness is the prognosis.”
![[no no no]](graemlins/nono.gif)
