BURLINGTON, VT – If you’ve attended legal seminars at the Florida edition of Internet Expo in years past, then you’ve likely seen and heard attorney/author Frederick Lane in person.This Wednesday night, the world will see Lane in a somewhat more “high profile” arena; as a guest on The Daily Show with John Stewart.
Lane will appear on the Daily Show Wednesday night, August 23rd, to be interviewed by Stewart regarding his latest book, The Decency Wars: The Campaign to Cleanse American Culture.
Lane, who told YNOT he’s a “huge fan” of both the Daily Show and its spin-off The Colbert Report, confessed to being a little nervous about his Daily Show debut.
“It’s pretty wild,” Lane said, noting that although he’s been interviewed on television before, including a recent appearance on NBC’s Weekend Today, he’s never before been on a show as popular and well-watched as Comedy Central’s critically acclaimed news parody.
The Decency Wars, Lane’s third book, recounts how Janet Jackson’s infamous performance during halftime of the 2004 Super Bowl gave rise to millions of dollars in fines handed down by the Federal Communications Commission, harsh new legislation aimed at curbing broadcast indecency and the introduction of a new term to the lexicon of American culture: the “wardrobe malfunction.”
Lane said that while his book’s main focus is the efforts of the Religious Right to “clean up media,” the Decency War extends well beyond the effort to purge the American media of sexual content. Gay rights, gay marriage, the so-called ‘Culture of Life,’ these are all fronts in the Decency War, according to Lane.
“The Terry Schiavo case was very much a Decency War battle,” Lane said.
The real problem with the Decency War, Lane says, is that “these issues serve as a distraction from the true indecencies in our society.”
“Poverty, hunger, healthcare – these are the real problems,” Lane said. “But people would much rather debate Janet Jackson’s breasts than hunger.”
Conservative groups have also become more sophisticated in their approach to the Decency War over the years, Lane said.
“The distinction between the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition is a good example,” Lane said.
The Moral Majority was very “scripture-heavy,” Lane said, determined to clean up the country using the Bible as both guide and authority, and simply steamroll along on the power of their own convictions.
Lane notes that back in 70s and 80s, the Moral Majority thought they had made major headway in their campaign, even taking credit for getting Ronald Reagan elected.
“They were going to clean up the country,” Lane said. “Well, it didn’t turn out quite the way they planned.”
In the years between the peak of the Moral Majority’s influence and the end of the 20th Century, American media went the opposite direction from that the Moral Majority had hoped for, and many in American society seemed taken aback by the group’s overtly evangelical nature.
“The Christian Coalition realized that they must have more savvy, must be more ‘centrist,’ than the Moral Majority was, if they were going to be effective,” Lane said. “The Christian Coalition was the beginning of the idea in the Religious Right that they needed to not scare the public.”
The Decency Wars received high marks from author and former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis, who called it “highly entertaining and also an important book.”
“It tells the story of attempts to make America comply with ‘decency’ – as defined by genuine religious conservatives and by assorted puritans, busybodies and political hypocrites,” Lewis wrote about The Decency Wars. “The hero is freedom of speech. The struggle goes on, and Frederick Lane has given us an indispensable guide to it.”
The Decency Wars: The Campaign to Cleanse American Culture, is available through Amazon and Borders, as are Lane’s first two books, 2001’s Obscene Profits: Entrepreneurs of Pornography in the Cyber Age, and 2003’s The Naked Employee: How Technology Is Compromising Workplace Privacy.
