WASHINGTON, DC — Forget about improvised explosive devices – the real problem for our soldiers in Iraq is, apparently, porn addiction.Quoting only one military man of the cloth, Marine Corps chaplain Father Mark Reilly, Family.org claims that military chaplains are reporting an increasing number of servicemen who confess to their priests about “porn’s hold on them.”
Father Reilly, who recently returned from Iraq, told Family.org that while overseas, he heard confessions from numerous soldiers who claimed to be addicted to porn, addictions fed primarily by the internet, according to Reilly.
Reilly said that although “people will mail them stuff,” the “internet is the biggest source of the spread of this addiction I would say.”
According to Reilly, the twin stresses of combat and isolation from home and family combine to create a climate ripe for porn addiction, and combating the problem requires a recommitment from the military in terms of enforcing its own rules.
“I have trouble with the fact that you can step into the PX and buy pornography,” Reilly said. “I don’t think our Post Exchanges need to be in the business of peddling porn.”
In 1996, Congress passed the Military Honor and Decency Act, which prohibits the “the sale or rental of sexually explicit material on property under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense.”
Elaine Donnelly, the president of the Center for Military Readiness (CMR) asserts that the ban on sales of sexually explicit material is not being enforced.
“When a military base makes pornography available, or condones it, or does nothing about it when it comes in through other areas, it sort of implies that it’s OK with the leadership,” Donnelly said, according to Family.org.
Neither the Family.org article nor the people quoted in it provide any evidence of pornography being sold or purchased on Department of Defense property, though, which calls into question exactly what law it is that they would like to see enforced.
The restriction of sexually-explicit material under the law, which is contained in USC 10, § 2495b, pertains to the “sale and rental” of sexually-explicit material on Department of Defense property, and by persons “acting in an official capacity,” but does not constitute an outright ban on the possession of, or viewing of, sexually explicit material by military personnel.
As defined in the statute, “property under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense” includes the following: “all facilities operated by the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, the Navy Exchange Service Command, the Navy Resale and Services Support Office, Marine Corps exchanges, and ships’ stores.”
If most soldiers are getting their porn from the internet, as Father Reilly asserts, it is unclear how more stringent enforcement of USC 10, § 2495b would abate the “problem” of military porn viewing.
Donnelly, whose CMR organization bills itself as a “non-partisan educational organization formed to take a leadership role in promoting sound military personnel policies in the armed forces,” argues that the issue is not freedom of speech, but military discipline.
“Congress is going to have to take a look at this,” Donnelly said. “Certainly the Pentagon is going to have to enforce those rules. It’s a matter of good order and discipline and not just a matter of religion or free speech; it’s a matter that the military itself needs to be concerned about.”
A more likely path to reduction of porn viewing in the military than the enforcement of USC 10, § 2495b might be enforcement of certain articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
Although no article of the UCMJ specifically prohibits the possession or viewing of sexually explicit materials, there are articles that limit the means by which such materials can be acquired, and possibly how they are ‘shared’ by soldiers, once acquired.
Some of the potentially relevant regulations of the UCMJ are Article 134-28, regarding “indecent language;” Article 134-29, which pertains to “Indecent acts with another;” Article 134-33, which is entitled “Mails: depositing or causing to be deposited obscene matters in;” and Article 134-43, which involves “Requesting commission of an offense.”
