Uphold Community Standard On Cable

The vast majority of people at AT&T Cable Services are conscientious individuals who want to do the right thing. I believe they want to use their talents and responsibilities to promote personal growth and the public interest.

Many consumers, however, are alarmed that the company has given in to economic and ideological pressures to provide hard-core pornography.

All AT&T Cable Services’ markets, including Spokane, plan to launch a new channel, Hot Network, by Aug. 1. Hot Network is a cable version of X-rated video that is so graphic other big cable operators, such Time Warner, refused to air it.

AT&T’s new profit strategy is a dramatic departure from Spokane’s tradition of shunning hard-core pornography on our cable system.

This has been done for good reason. Pornography and obscenity cause a deterioration of the human personality. Pornography destroys the sense of individualism and the dignity of one’s neighbors by turning them into objects of pleasure and greed. It uses dehumanizing and exploitative acts and ideas to create alienation, hostility and anti-social behavior.

Although Hot Network will be offered on a pay-per-view basis, the larger community which shuns the programming is also destined for a blight of human suffering. Numerous studies, court cases and testimony support the contention that hard-core pornography causes felony sex crimes against women and children. It also increases sexual harassment, domestic violence and family disintegration and produces such secondary effects as serial rape and murder.

According to the Spokane County Domestic Violence Consortium and the Sex Crimes Division of the Spokane Police Department, Spokane already has a higher incidence of domestic violence and sex offenders than other Washington cities. Don’t misunderstand. I am committed to freedom of speech. I’ve even been sued defending it. However, the right to free speech is not an absolute. There are cases where no right to communicate exists, for example, libel and slander, false advertising, tax fraud, lying under oath, obscene pornography and threats of violence.

I also honor the fact that market factors play a role in determining content delivery. Niche marketing is useful and justified, but only to a point. Market and economic factors alone cannot be counted on to safeguard either the public interest as a whole or the legitimate interests of minorities and the vulnerable. If a niche cable channel’s content debases human sexuality, corrodes human relationships, exploits women and children, undermines marriage and family life and fosters anti-social and criminal behavior, we must condemn it as a threat to the health, safety, and welfare of our community.

I urge our city and county officials to continue their efforts to make Spokane the best it can be by upholding our current cable community standard. The U.S. Supreme Court has made “community standards” a legal factor in prosecuting obscenity cases. The 1996 Telecommunication Act gives city and county officials the authority to prohibit cable services that are obscene or otherwise unprotected by the Constitution.

Our elected officials are role models who help establish a positive culture that advances Spokane as a beautiful, family-friendly city. It is legitimate and necessary that they use their offices to persuade AT&T not to air Hot Network in our area. If we and our representatives do not hold the line on our community standard, what used to be the province of organized crime will become just another mainstream entertainment option.

Pornography is too often seen as a “victimless” crime which can be safely ignored due to other demands on the courts. It is, in fact, an offense that affects the overall tone of society, producing a breeding ground for other types of crime.

AT&T Cable Services has provided entertainment, education, jobs, community service and franchise fees to the city and county. But Ma Bell has fallen in the gutter. Let’s pull together to lift her up and demand that she exercise corporate ethics and public accountability. We’re worth it.