APPENDIX K -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. PATRICK A. TRUEMAN, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D.C. STATEMENT OF PATRICK A. TRUEMAN SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES HEARING ON THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS Room 2175 Rayburn House Office Building Testimony of Patrick A. Trueman, Director of Governmental Affairs, American Family Association. Pursuant to clause 2(g)(4) of the Rule XI of the Rules of the House of Representatives, I certify that neither the American Family Association nor I have received any federal grant or contract during the current fiscal year or since October of 1994. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of American Family Association. For the past eight years AFA has been the leading organization opposing federal funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1989, AFA president Rev. Donald Wildmon called to national attention the funding by the NEA of Andres Serrano's work "Piss Christ" which consisted of a crucifix submersed in the artists' urine. The fact that such a blasphemous work was federally funded outraged a great segment of American society and precipitated a battle to end federal funding of the agency. That battle will not end until funding for the NEA ends. The federal government should not be in the business of dictating what art is. That is not a proper governmental function and, in the case of the NEA, such a function poses a potential conflict with the federal criminal law. Year after year NEA grants make possible the production and distribution of a variety of sexually explicit material. During the last part of the Reagan Administration and during the entire the Bush Administration I served in the United States Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Washington D.C. as Chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section. That office is charged with the prosecution of obscenity and child pornography crimes. Part of my job, as supervisor of the office was to review and make prosecutorial decisions on both adult and child pornography. Much of what we prosecuted in those two presidential administrations involved material of the same nature as that funded through the years by the NEA. Mr. Chairman, how can you expect common citizens to respect the rule of law, particularly the federal criminal law on child pornography and obscenity when Congress continues to fund the NEA knowing the agency has a pattern of conduct over the years and to the present day of funding material which may offend the criminal law. To continue to do so would be the height of hypocrisy. I submit that the NEA poses a direct threat to the prosecution, on both the federal and state levels, of obscenity and child pornography crimes. In obscenity cases a jury is required to make a determination that the material is "obscene" based on the three-part test established in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973): whether the material (1.) depicts specific sex acts in a patently offensive way; (2.) appeals to the prurient interest in sex as a whole; and (3.) lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. (emphasis added) It would be a relevant defense argument that material similar to that charged in a particular prosecution is funded by the NEA as "art." Indeed it may be appropriate, on motion from the defense, for a judge to allow a jury to view a specific NEA-funded work that is similar to the work charged as obscene in the case to aid the jury in the application of the Miller test. Surely you can understand the dilemma this would pose to a jury which must make a unanimous finding on the obscenity or non obscenity of the material. Just one juror trusting the federal governments' opinion on the nature of such material would cause the acquittal of a hard-core pornographer. The problems the NEA could pose in the prosecution in a child pornography case are somewhat different. The Miller test does not apply and thus a jury is not asked to decide whether the material is lacking in artist value. However, the imprimatur of the NEA on such material or similar material or even on an organization that produces or distributes such material may play a |