Morality in Media
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Morality in Media, Inc. (MIM) is an American, faith-based, non-profit organization that was established in New York in 1962. MIM seeks to raise awareness about the purported harms of pornography and other forms of obscenity on individuals, families and society. MIM also works through constitutional means to curb traffic in obscenity and uphold their personal idea of decency in media. The president is Patrick A. Trueman.[1] Truman is a registered federal lobbyist[2][3]
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[edit] Founding
MIM was launched by an interfaith group of clergy in the Upper Eastside of Manhattan (NYC) in 1962 after grade school children were caught with hardcore pornography. MIM was first formed by Father Morton A. Hill, Rabbi Julius Neumann, and Rev. Robert Wiltenburg (a Lutheran pastor) as a neighborhood organization under the name Operation Yorkville.[4] They were soon joined by Rev. Constantine Volaitis of the Greek Orthodox Church.
[edit] Hill-Link minority report
In 1968, Father Hill, a president of MIM until death in 1985, was appointed to serve on the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography by President Lyndon B. Johnson. A report was submitted in 1970 that said all "adult" obscenity laws should be repealed. Fr. Hill co-authored a minority report describing the Commission's report as a "Magna Carta for the pornographers" [5] with another Commission member, Dr. Winfrey Link. The U.S. Supreme Court recognized the Hill-Link minority report in upholding obscenity laws in 1973.
[edit] Activities
MIM's current campaigns include:
- The Coalition for the War on Illegal Pornography - a bipartisan coalition of more than 115 national, state and local groups.
- Pornography Harms
- The Safe Library Project
- Close "The Playboy Club" on NBC
- Be Aware: PORN HARMS National Awareness Campaign
- White Ribbon Against Pornography week.[6]
[edit] Funding
Annual U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) grants of $150,000 in the 2005 and 2006 federal budgets funded MIM's review of citizen-generated obscenity complaints submitted to MIM's ObscenityCrimes.org website. 67,000 of the complaints deemed legitimate under the program had resulted in no obscenity prosecutions as of August 2007. The grants were created by Congressional earmarks by U.S. Representative Frank Wolf of Virginia,[7] and awarded through the DOJ's Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs.[8]
[edit] Website Closure
On February 23, 2012 the MIM website went offline. All attempts to access the website were redirected to a page that read "Morality in Media has been taken offline to prevent illegal access by those who think pornography is harmless. Pornography is NOT harmless and no matter how much you want porn to be normal, it isn't!" The message would go on to state that the IP address of the visitor "has been recorded" before redirecting to a video entitled "How Porn Addiction Harms the Person - Mary Anne Layden at PornHarms.com Briefing on Capitol Hill," from the YouTube channel "Pornharms."
Shortly after the closure of the website, MIM president and CEO Patrick Trueman released a statement claiming that MIM's website had recently been inundated with messages from people responding to another Pornharms video called "Man watched violent, child-themed porn on Delta flight - NO ONE CARED!",[9] in which MIM's Executive Director Dawn Hawkins details an experience she had on a Delta Airlines flight, and that Hawkins had been receiving "threatening (phone) calls." Trueman concluded the statement by soliciting donations for MIM.[10]
[edit] References
- ^ About Morality in Media at MIM site.
- ^ "Yahoo slammed over porn sites - IT News from". V3.co.uk. http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/1943664/yahoo-slammed-porn-sites. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
- ^ "U.S. Senate: Legislation & Records Home > Public Disclosure > client list index > client list T". Jcp.senate.gov. 2011-10-13. http://jcp.senate.gov/pagelayout/legislative/b_three_sections_with_teasers/clientlist_page_T.htm. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
- ^ Fr. Morton A. Hill, S.J.: Defender of the Public Decencies at the Morality in Media website.
- ^ "Members Hit Pornography Conclusions". Sarasota Herald-Tribune. 24 September 1970. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_X0fAAAAIBAJ&sjid=KmYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6659%2C2570838. Retrieved 5 March 2012.
- ^ White Ribbon Against Pornography week at MIM site.
- ^ Lewis, Neil A. Federal Effort on Web Obscenity Shows Few Results New York Times, via nytimes.com, 2007-08-10. Retrieved on 2007-08-11.
- ^ ObscenityCrimes.org (Nonprofit website). ObscenityCrimes.org, Morality in Media, Inc. Retrieved on 2007-08-11.
- ^ PornHarms. "Man watched violent, child-themed porn on Delta flight - NO ONE CARED!". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjuWn32pzLM. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
- ^ "We are under full-scale attack". Hosted.verticalresponse.com. http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/943161/0e23882301/286804219/99939ca6da/. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
