Pornography Awareness Month??? What’s that?

By: Bill Johnson

In 1985, I became engaged in a long-term ministry and fight to oppose pornography.   We used to circulate a bumper sticker that said “Pornography is not a victimless Crime.”   That was then – this is now.  When is the last time you heard a sermon against pornography and for holiness?   Is pornography now a safe play thing?  You know better, even if you don’t talk about it or hear anything about the major threat it is today – more than ever.

I flew down to Tupelo, Mississippi in 1987 to meet the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon for the first time.  I remember it well.  I was impressed with Don right from the beginning. His passion for truth and righteousness was so evident.  After a time of personal discussion, he equipped me to go back to Michigan with a 16mm film (some of you will remember such a thing).  The one-hour movie was entitled “The Winnable War” featuring Dr. Jerry Kirk (who headed the National Coalition Against Pornography) and Dr. James Dobson (then President of Focus on the Family).   Dr. Dobson had been appointed to serve on what turned out to be a 12-month commitment with the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography with eleven other individuals.  The Attorney General then, under President Ronald Reagan, was the Honorable Edwin Meese.

Coming out of that commission was an outline of the hazards and harms of pornography coupled with 78 recommendations on how to specifically combat pornography.

The 16mm film addressed the vital need for Americans to roll back the increasingly degrading tone of pornography and its deleterious effect upon the American people.

Over these coming days and weeks, I intend to bring out some remembrances that will highlight the damage that was being done in that day and to ask the question:  so, is all well now?  Is pornography a thing of the past?  How can it be so?  If not, why don’t we hear of people crying out?

So here is one of my first accounts.

When I was a teacher of elementary children in the public schools, I had a fourth-grade girl whose emotions fluctuated day by day (clearly out of the ordinary).  Several years later the girl and her mother approached Jan (my wife) and I to tell us that the young lady’s father, while his wife was out, would ask the young lady to watch XXX rated movies and then try to groom her into believing that this is what fathers and daughters do.  And then he would act out what was displayed on the video.

After a couple of years, the mother discovered this and went to the authorities.  Though it took a period of time, the father was prosecuted and spent some time in the county jail.   But still, this was not justice considering the damaging impact upon this innocent young lady’s life.

Over a short period of time, as I was considering going full-time in the fight against pornography, God was bringing quite a large number of local personal accounts right directly to me regarding the damaging impact of pornography.

Before the internet came into our lives, there were the developments of counseling centers for pornography addicts.  There were strategies on getting, primarily, men out of the addiction to pornography.   I personally would receive calls from women and men asking for help for their mate or themselves.

What is going on these days?  I think it is time for another Commission on Pornography, but it certainly wouldn’t come under our present president and his attorney general, Merrick Garland.  We know well enough that if they did concoct such a commission, they would weight the commission in the favor of those who would conclude that pornography is healthy for a culture and that it’s good to broaden the legality of pornography, even for the use of children.

Perhaps that is why we hear so little regarding the degrading, damaging, addictive nature of pornography – because it has become increasingly acceptable, increasingly normal – even for women.  Women, it is important to remember, once were the ones most apt to cry out against pornography because they were the ones being used, as they still are, as sex objects.

So what in the world is Pornography Awareness Month?  The title could be seen as an initiation into pornography or making people aware of pornography.  However, it is neither of those things.

It was, and is, a month of raising awareness of the massive deleterious impact of this issue, conceived of by Don Wildmon.

Myself having been associated with AFA back in the ’80s and into the mid-’90s, I headed the American Family Association of Michigan and participated strongly in the yearly campaign against pornography for many, many years.

So, it is October and it is hightime, as now President of American Decency Association, that I trumpet, with my ministry of old – AFA, our shared burden regarding the destructive, addictive impact of pornography!

I invite your support in word, deed, and financial affirmation.

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