WASHINGTON, DC —As it currently stands, a United States soldier can die for his/her country — but on base, he or she cannot purchase what the Pentagon considers sexually explicit material. The on-base sale of porn has been banned for 10 years on military bases, much to the delight of online retailers and brick-and-mortar adult stores near those bases. But now the debate about what materials should be in soldiers’ hands is back on.Religious right and anti-pornography groups have complained to Congress and Defense Secretary Robert Gates that a Pentagon board set up to review magazines and videos is allowing sales of material that Congress intended to ban.
The Military Honor and Decency Act of 1996 bars stores on military bases from selling “sexually explicit material.” It defines that as film or printed matter “the dominant theme of which depicts or describes nudity” or sexual activities “in a lascivious way.” This law has pretty much left base stores selling nothing in the way of adult material other than copies of Playboy and Penthouse. Challenged in 2002 as a violation of the First Amendment, the law was upheld in appeals court.
“They’re saying ‘we’re not selling stuff that’s sexually explicit’ … and we say it’s pornography,” says longtime anti-porn activist Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association. A letter-writing campaign launched last week by opponents of the policy aims to convince Congress to “get the Pentagon to obey the law,” he adds.
The AFA is complaining about Playboy and Penthouse being sold on base along with FHM, Perfect 10, Celebrity Skin and other similar, softcore titles.
“The (Pentagon’s) lawyers … determined that for a magazine to be found lewd and lascivious, a certain percentage of the content would have to fall under that category,” says Steve Sellman, a retired Pentagon official who chaired the resale board in the late 1990s. “We looked to see how much of (a magazine) was articles or advertising that had no sexual content.”
About 67-percent of the 473 titles reviewed have been barred, the Pentagon explained to USA Today.
Nonetheless, the religious right doesn’t believe that the military wants to enforce the law banning soldiers from buying porn on base.
“They say, ‘well, 40-percent of this magazine is sexually explicit pictures, but 60-percent is writing or advertising, so the totality is not sexually explicit.’ That’s ridiculous,” said Patrick Trueman of the Alliance Defense Fund.
The ACLU is attempting to inject common sense into the discussion, with Nadine Strossen, the head of the organization pointing out, “”We’re asking these people to risk their lives to defend our Constitution’s principles… and they’re being denied their own First Amendment rights to choose what they read.”
