WASHINGTON, DC — Adult entertainment producer, director, distributor and erstwhile performer John “Buttman” Stagliano will be arraigned April 21st on eight federal counts including interstate transportation of obscenity and distributing obscenity to minors. A forfeiture request also will be heard.Stagliano is expected to enter a plea of “not guilty” across the board.
Conservative organizations, as might be expected, were pleased to hear of the indictments when they were handed down by a Washington, DC grand jury last week. However, some thought the indictments represented too little effort on the part of the federal government to stem the scourge of pornography.
“Early indications lead us to believe this material is once again the ‘worst of the worst,’” Daniel Weiss, a senior analyst for media and sexuality at Focus on the Family Action, told CitizenLink.com. “The Justice Department does nothing to stop the mainstreaming of pornography by only prosecuting material at the extreme edge of society.”
The films selected for prosecution have been called “tame” by contemporary adult-industry standards.
“The case is an important obscenity case, but standing alone it isn’t going to stem the tide of obscenity,” Morality in Media President Robert W. Peters said. “They’ve just got to do more cases, or the pornographers are going to win.”
On April 9th, the same day the Stagliano indictments were announced, MIM released the results of a survey declaring “three out of four Americans support the vigorous enforcement of federal obscenity laws.” The telephone survey of 1,018 adults was commissioned by MIM and conducted by Harris Interactive, the organization said.
“Were the next president to do all in his power to ensure that federal obscenity laws are enforced vigorously, three out of four (75-percent) of adult Americans would support the president in this matter…,” a statement distributed by the organization stated. “This compares with about one in five (19-percent) of adults who would oppose the president.”
MIM further broke down the “would support” responses into demographics:
Party Identification: Republicans 85-percent, Democrats 77-percent, Independents 69-percent
Gender: women 79-percent, men 70-percent
Marital status: married 80-percent, single 67-percent
Child status: grown children 81-percent, children at home 76-percent, no children 66-percent
Age: 18-24 60 percent, 25-34 73-percent, 35-44 70 percent, 45-54 84 percent, 54-64 80-percent, 65-plus 80-percent
Ethnicity: White 76-percent, Black 77-percent, Hispanic 63-percent
Region: Northeast 72-percent, Midwest-75 percent, South 80-percent, West 69-percent
“Those who defend hardcore pornography, whether in court or in the court of public opinion, point to the proliferation of this material as ‘proof’ either that everyone is viewing it or that people no longer deem it unacceptable,” Peters said. “In Hamling v. United States, the Supreme Court recognized that the mere fact that hardcore pornographic materials are available in the nation or in a community does not ‘make them witnesses of virtue’ or prove that similar materials at issue in a criminal obscenity trial are acceptable under community standards and therefore legal to disseminate.
“It is unfortunate that during the past 15 years so little has been done at the federal level to curb distribution of obscene materials,” he continued. “During President Clinton’s terms in offices, enforcement of federal obscenity laws was not a Justice Department priority. During President Bush’s terms, his Attorney Generals have talked big but haven’t implemented needed policies to get the job done. Hopefully, the next President will take whatever steps are necessary to fight obscenity effectively, knowing that the large majority of adult Americans will support such action.”
As for the current case, Stagliano has established a legal defense fund to pay his legal fees and those of his companies, Evil Angel Productions and John Stagliano Inc., which also face charges. A website for the fund was due to go up Monday and will be linked from the EvilAngel.com homepage.
