B. AVENUES OF INDIVIDUAL ACTION

Avoid purchases.-The individual's first line of action against pornographic and other objectionable printed materials and movies is to refrain from purchasing or attending such products. Were there no market for these items, their commercial production soon would

cease.

Man's depravity and cultural conditions being what they are, the demand for and supply of these materials can be expected to continue. Therefore individuals who themselves never patronize these products must take additional steps as well.

Influence opinions.-Individually one can witness through written and spoken word to his aversion to these objectionable materials. Letters and personal visits to legislators and law enforcement officials are means to this end. So are carefully chosen comments to readers or patrons and vendors of such products. Letters to the editor of influential newspapers are helpful. Vocal support and constructive criticism of public officials faithfully seeking to do their official duty in this difficult field is another effective means of individual witness. Caution should be exercised lest publicity given to actions taken inadvertently yields valuable free advertising which in turn stimulates patronage of the offending product.

Use laws.-Initiating legal action against clearly offensive publications or films is another avenue open to the individual. Materials received through the mails can be acted against through the local postmaster. Those on sale locally can be dealt with through the city or county attorney, often called the prosecuting attorney, or through the police department.

Handle products responsibly.-Sensitive individuals feeling their responsibility for the well-being of their neighbors will avoid dealing in or merchandising products of this character. They will prefer smaller monetary gains to the risk of harming their neighbors through salacious, lust-enticing, or sin-stimulating products. They will screen the products they handle and will welcome constructive counsel helping them to separate the unacceptable from the acceptable materials. They may "grade" their products, voluntarily limiting the locations where certain ones are offered for sale.

Overcome loneliness.-Recognizing that loneliness and insecurity may be factors prompting some persons to rely upon pornographic materials for vicarious satisfactions, thoughtful persons will give special attention to persons alone and away from their usual supporting environment. Congenial companionship can be an antidote to reliance upon the printed page or silver screen for providing fictionalized substitutes for healthy companionship.

C. AVENUES OF COMMUNITY ACTION

Enlist cooperative action.-Individual action is essential in coping with the problems posed by pornographic and other objectionable materials. Individual action alone, however, is not enough. Cooperative action at the community level also is required. Such community action needs to be carefully organized, perceive its purposes clearly, enlist the widest possible cooperation, and rely upon voluntary agreement rather than compulsion except in extreme cases. A community council bringing together representatives of all clubs,

groups, and associations in the community may be an effective organizational medium to effect and to use.

Use laws intelligently.-Existing laws in most States and communities probably would be adequate to deal with the problem if they were intelligently enforced and definitions supported by community opinion. Improvements in the interpretation of existing laws on obscenity, lewdness, etc., could be made in most States to incorporate the principle stated by the Supreme Court (June 24, 1957) "whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interests." To bring about such a wholesome change, and to insure opportunity for jury decisions to apply contemporary community standards, informed political action is needed.

Aid officers. Cooperation with, support of, and if need be prodding into action of, law enforcement officers in an intelligent enforcement of laws on obscenity, pornography, and the like, is an essential of community action. A citizens' advisory council on objectionable printed materials and motion pictures can be a valuable aid to conscientious public officials in evaluating materials. Community action leading to the appointment of such an advisory council might well be initiated. Responsibility for legal action needs to remain with the proper officials lest the advisory committee become a board of censors.

Emphasize positive action.-Positive rather than negative means should be used. Lists of forbidden books, magazines, and motion pictures, especially those emanating from religious sources, should be avoided. Lists of cooperating dealers pledged to standards of review, distribution, and sale, could well be published and emblems of participation given them for display. Grading of products, whether of printed materials or of motion pictures, to insure their nonavailability in places patronized by youth but permitting their availability to adults, appears a positive, defensible, course of action.

Remain vigilant.-Community campaigns should enlist the continuing cooperation of not only the churches, parent-teacher associations, youth groups, and service clubs but also of such others as veterans' organizations and their auxiliaries, trade associations of grocers, druggists, and theater operators, and similar groups. The goal is community betterment, not organization prestige. An entire community alert to, acting on, continuingly informed, and vigilantly watchful to eliminate pornographic and other tainted influences will keep the problem under control. Merchants and merchandisers will readily cooperate if they have such evidence of the community's sincerity and determination. They will welcome support in their opposition to tie-in sales arrangements and other devices by which they are required to handle materials they do not want as a price for handling preferred items.

Provide wholesome alternatives.-A community which provides wholesome and constructive, educational, leisure time, and occupational opportunities for its youth, good social, cultural, and economic conditions for its people, and genuine neighborly interest and companionship among its residents thereby provides at least a partial antidote to the poisons of pornographic and other morally objectionable materials. Much of the allure of such materials lies in the escape they falsely promise from dull, drab, depressing, limiting, lonely conditions under which the person feels he lives.

D. LONG-RANGE PROGRAMS OF EDUCATION NEEDED

Wholesome sex education.-A first, foremost, urgent attack on the problem of pornography is to provide children and youth with a sound, sensible education in sex. Persons with balanced, wholesome attitudes on sex and its place in human life will not be attracted by the warped and distorted allures of pornography.

Self-understanding and acceptance.-Related to the foregoing is the aim of helping children, youth, and adults to gain a clear picture of themselves, their strengths, their weaknesses, their purposes and goals in life, their relations with other persons and possessions, and their place in the cosmos. Persons who have accepted themselves as responsible, useful, accepted, happy members of the community only rarely become problem people.

Responsibility over rights.-Persons aware of the effect of their actions upon others will evidence a sense of responsibility, and will not claim "rights" to the harm and detriment of others. Education along these lines will make it evident that "freedom of the press," and "freedom of private enterprise" are limited rights, conferring no right to work moral hurt or harm upon members of the community.

Education for higher values.-Good schools, good libraries, good newspapers, good music, good family and group fun-these help to influence tastes and values toward higher rather than lower levels. Educational efforts toward overcoming mental slothfulness and satisfaction with mediocrity, toward developing the varied talents of a person for vocational and avocational usefulness to himself and others, and toward minimizing the normal tendencies to selfish satisfactions are constructive steps of a long-range nature.

E. THE CHURCH'S ROLE

Many-pronged attack. The role of the church in battling inroads of immorality in print and on the screen is manysided. It also is a difficult one. Among avenues of action open to the church, the following may be suggested:

(a) Bear public witness to its position and warn of the evils involved in indulgence in these materials, without at the same time stimulating patronage of the products.

(a) Guide and encourage its members to take responsible action as individuals along avenues open to them, and support them in such responsible action.

(c) Participate as an organization of the community in wellconceived, well-run programs of community action.

(d) Take a leadership role through its members who are in positions to determine the programs and policies of various organizations in the community, reminding them of the rich meaning of their fellowship with one another through their membership with Christ.

(e) Seek to understand why these materials have such an appeal and develop its programs to meet the evident gaps this understanding reveals.

(f) Provide or recommend wholesome, vital, relevant reading and viewing materials and encourage the patronage of products upholding sound standards or morality and decency.

(g) Remember its prime role in proclaiming the word, administering the saeraments, mediating God's grace and forgiveness, restoring

sinners to fellowship with God through faith in His Son, and giving men a realistic view of themselves, their nature, purpose, and destiny.

(h) Avoid temptations to become an earthly power by using legislation and compulsion to achieve its religious views, relying rather upon the processes of education, inner discipline, self-control, and evangelical persuasion.

Perspectives from Scripture.-The church can take a realistic and understanding view of the appeal which essentially immoral materials have for human beings. It knows man's basic nature and that "all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world" (I John 2: 16). It knows that "out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies * * *the things which defile a man" (Matthew 15: 19, 20). It knows the human experience "For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do" (Romans 7: 19).

The church also knows from God's Word the need for corrective action. "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof" (Romans 6: 12), and His admonition "Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul" (I Peter 2: 11). The church knows the comforting truth that not man's ability but the power of His Spirit enables men to overcome lusts and temptation and to flee evil. "Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh *** If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law*** They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts" (Galatians 5: 16, 19, 24).

Seeking other explanations.-Observing the problem further, the church can sense that such personal and social factors as the following are further explanations of why persons turn to materials which are sex centered or violence saturated:

(a) loneliness, a lack of companionship, an inability to get along with people, or wrong companions;

(b) emotional immaturity and instability, reflecting a warped picture of self and inadequate answers to such basic questions as "who am I?", "why am I here?", and "where am I going?";

(c) lack of opportunity or lack of incentive to appreciate higher values and better quality materials as a means of constructively using available time and energies;

(d) a revolt against negative, repressive teachings and influences from some homes and some churches, especially as these

concern sex;

(e) failure of home and church to give wholesome, sane, spiritual values and attitudes toward sex, reproduction, male and female roles, the human body, and the like;

(f) frequent stimuli to lusts and violence in everyday living, including a widespread emphasis on youth and beauty, materials on these themes offering opportunity for vicarious satisfaction of unfulfilled wants;

(g) unwholesome social, economic, and leisure-time conditions in the community.

Building an action program.-In developing its congregational programs the church will take these factors into account in its preaching, teaching, counseling, and organizational activities. It will seek positive attitudes, not negative repressions. It will strive (a) to provide moral armament to withstand temptation, (b) to foster

positive personality fulfillment, (c) to give a rich spiritual vision to such concepts as sanctification and stewardship, (d) to build a sense of responsibility to neighbor as to God for one's thoughts, words, and actions, and (e) to relate its people to God through Christ so that through His Spirit they will have the power to live a wholesome, richly satisfying, constructively useful, God-pleasing life.

Precisely how these ends can be accomplished the Holy Spirit will reveal to consecrated pastors, faithful parents, devout teachers, earnest church council members, and dedicated youth leaders as they seek prayerfully and conscientiously to be about the Master's business in their congregations and communities. Their weaknesses He will overcome, their failures He will forgive, their successes He will bless.

CINCINNATI VERSUS PORNOGRAPHY-CITIZENS FOUND THEY HAD GOOD LAWS AND A GOOD POLICE FORCE; WHAT ELSE WAS NEEDED?

(By Kay Sullivan)

This is the story of a city threatened by a dangerous disease, and of how it cured itself. It is a story of democracy in action, of men and women willing to devote time and talent to the welfare of their fellow citizens. The place: Cincinnati, Ohio. The disease: pornography.

The story began with the determination of a young lawyer to prove that a good law is the best weapon against community evil. A flood of filth in magazine, book, and picture form had engulfed the Queen City. The blight had crept into community life through corner newsstands. Out in front of a newsstand would be the usual colorful spread of news and picture magazines that readers take for granted week after week. Behind them, the usual women's magazines, dedicated to home, fashion, beauty, children. Tucked beside them and behind them, the more dubious publications: men's "adventure" magazines, pin-up and cheesecake publications.

And buried deeper still on the newsstand, the real cancer: publications that make a specialty of glorifying perversion of all sorts: fetishism, sadism, masochism.

No retailer of magazines is forced in any way to display or sell a magazine which he does not wish to display or sell. But magazine dealers often try to use the false excuse that they have to take pornography in order to get their quota of normal reading material. They call it "bootleg."

"I've got a better name for it," says a Cincinnati cab driver. "I call it garbage. It used to make me sick a couple of years ago to go into a drugstore and see youngsters huddled over magazines filled with smutty pictures. We know that certain publishers print this stuff just to make money, but how are the kids going to know that? They read it and think, "This is life; this is sophisticated; this is grown-up.' I know. I've got three high school kids of my own."

A lanky, 35-year-old lawyer named Charles H. Keating, Jr., was appalled at the spread of pornography in his home town. Keating is a former all-American swimming champion and navy fighter pilot.

He found it was no trouble at all to get "the books behind the books." He discovered that in some stores 9- and 10-year-old youngsters were regular purchasers of material loaded with suggestive pictures and stories about abnormal sex behavior. He also learned that on the national scene pornography is a half-billion-dollar-a-year