WASHINGTON – If the director of a conservative Christian “research institute” has his way, the adult entertainment industry soon may find itself under assault from a new direction: civil lawsuits filed by individuals who claim to have been harmed by pornography.

During a lecture at the Family Research Council on Wednesday, Patrick F. Fagan, PhD, told the audience it’s time for religious people of all faiths to “push back” against the evils of pornography. He suggested “good lawyers” and average citizens could make a financial killing — and irreparably damage the adult entertainment industry — by suing wealthy pornographers for the harm their products cause to marriages, children and society.

In addition, Fagan planted a litigious seed among college students by alleging students may have grounds to sue universities if they encounter porn on campus.

“Basically porn is now everywhere,” Fagan told the lecture audience. “Particularly for Christians, Catholics, evangelicals, and for Jews and Muslims too.… This is almost like our times are a bit analogous to pagan Rome, where Christianity first grew up. …[W]hat we really have is a pagan sexuality which is totally different from a Christian sexuality, and I don’t think enough Christians have yet put that starkly enough to themselves.”

In fact, Fagan continued, secular Americans are engaging in all sorts of deviant behaviors Fagan believes led to Rome’s downfall.

“There’s a pagan sexuality which is a pan-sexuality which is the erotic,” he told the lecture audience. “Abortion, homosexuality, infidelity, pornography, euthanasia, infanticide — all of those things were just the common sexual practice of pagan Rome….”

Fagan, who holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, is the director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute at the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian lobbying group with the stated mission of “advanc[ing] faith, family and freedom in public policy and the culture from a Christian worldview.” MARRI claims to “examine the relationships among family, marriage, religion, community and America’s social problems, as illustrated in the social science data.”

To support his lecture arguments, Fagan presented a slide show of data collected by MARRI. Charts and graphs correlated pornography with substance abuse, divorce rates and abortion, among other things. According to Fagan, pornography users often pursue distorted fantasies involving children, invalids … and vampires.

Neither the suggestions nor the research are new. Many of Fagan’s points may be found in his 2009 “research report” entitled “The Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage, Family and Community.” Presumably, he would encourage anti-porn activists and attorneys to review the study’s findings in order to present an effective prosecution of pornography in court.

“Pornography is a visual representation of sexuality which distorts an individual’s concept of the nature of conjugal relations,” Fagan wrote in the executive summary. “This, in turn, alters both sexual attitudes and behavior. It is a major threat to marriage, to family, to children and to individual happiness. In undermining marriage it is one of the factors in undermining social stability.”

Among the “powerful negative effects” the report attributes to porn:

• Married men who are involved in pornography feel less satisfied with their conjugal relations and less emotionally attached to their wives.
• Pornography use is a pathway to infidelity and divorce, and is frequently a major factor in these family disasters.
• Among couples affected by one spouse’s addiction, two-thirds experience a loss of interest in sexual intercourse.
• Both spouses perceive pornography viewing as tantamount to infidelity.
• Pornography viewing leads to a loss of interest in good family relations.
• Men who view pornography regularly have a higher tolerance for abnormal sexuality, including rape, sexual aggression and sexual promiscuity.
• Prolonged consumption of pornography by men produces stronger notions of women as commodities or “sex objects.”
• Pornography engenders greater sexual permissiveness, which in turn leads to a greater risk of out-of-wedlock births and sexually transmitted diseases. These, in turn, lead to more societal weaknesses and debilities.
• Many adolescents who view pornography initially feel shame, diminished self-confidence and sexual uncertainty, but these feelings quickly shift to unadulterated enjoyment with regular viewing.

During his lecture, Fagan implied any or all of the alleged scientific data might prove persuasive in court.