TOPEKA, KS – Leaders of an anti-pornography campaign in Topeka, Kansas announced the initiation of legal action against four local adult businesses, which they claim are violating the state’s obscenity laws.Reverend Paul Barnes, the president of Topeka Evangelical Area Ministries, said he would file a petition yesterday in Shawnee County District Court, seeking a grand jury investigation of the businesses.
The investigation would determine whether Kansas obscenity laws are being violated by four businesses in the Topeka area – Priscilla’s, After Dark Video, Adult Entertainment Center, and Sinsations.
“Kansas law is specific on things that should not be offered for sale,” Barnes told The Capital-Journal. “We believe there are several stores in town that have broken the law.”
The petition is just one part of an ongoing effort targeting adult businesses in Kansas, a campaign organized by the Abilene-based anti-porn activist Phillip C. Cosby. Cosby has also called for revisions to Kansas’ existing obscenity statute, in order to make it easier for authorities to prosecute businesses that sell sexually explicit videos, magazines, sex toys and other adult products.
Cosby said another petition was to be filed yesterday in Sedgwick County District Court, similarly targeting adult businesses in the Wichita area.
According to reports in the Capital-Journal, Cosby has organized other grand jury petition drives that resulted in charges being brought against stores in Wichita, Abilene and Ellsworth, and one unsuccessful petition effort to indict two shops in Salina, KS.
Cosby claims that he began his anti-porn crusade after police and prosecutors told him of a strong correlation between porn and crime.
“There’s a real connection between criminal behavior – rape and pedophilia, for instance – and pornography,” Cosby asserted.
The latest petition needs to have the signatures of 1360 registered voters in order to be validated; Cosby and Barnes said organizers have collected around 3300 on the petition, which was circulated in local churches and door-to-door.
According to Cosby, the four adult shops in question are among 13 total sexually-oriented businesses in Shawnee County, including exotic dance clubs. While the four businesses are all adult video and novelty stores, Cosby said anti-porn activists will seek grand jury investigations into the other nine adult businesses through a succession of petitions, as well.
“We didn’t put all the eggs in one basket,” said Cosby. “We are going to go after them all, but in a measured sense. We’ve got a Plan A, a Plan B, a Plan C and a Plan D.”
After the petition is filed, the court has 60 days to decide whether to empanel a grand jury.
