The Sleaze Parade

Well, it seems that the Vice President got himself another endorsement over the weekend, although he more than likely never accepted it. The reported endorsement was from the Internet pornographers that were meeting for their convention in the perfect location for people with those sorts of hobbies and interests – New Orleans, where else?

New Orleans has long been described by many as America’s Sodom and Gomorrah. Whether that is true or not is subject to dispute, and that is not the point I am trying to make here. The point I am trying to underscore is that during the impeachment period of Clinton’s second term, they (our current administration) actively allied itself with perhaps the leading pornographer and moral degenerate of our time, namely HUSTLER publisher Larry Flynt. For those with shorter memories than me, Flynt took out full-page newspaper ads offering a bounty of up to $1 million if anyone could prove they had been engaged in an affair with a high-ranking government official. Democrats that may have been involved in inappropriate relationships did not have their names surface during this period, but plenty of Republicans came up on the radar screen.

Dan Burton of Indiana, Helen Chenoweth of Idaho, Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde of Illinois, Speaker-designate Bob Livingston of Louisiana as well as the biggest fish in the House, Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia himself, who was caught with a 33-year old staffer on the Hill. One could not help but feel for Marianne and the humiliation she has had to endure as Newt’s dalliance came to light. For a lot of this, we can thank Clinton’s number one apologist and in-house pit-bull James Carville who more than likely was spoon-feeding Larry Flynt names of Republicans to go after.

Flynt is a bottom-feeder that capitalizes on the misery of others and appeals to the basest desires and lowest common denominators in humanity and the potential for both nobility and divinity that burns brightly within each of us. This is a man who clearly has no idea of what it means to have respect for anyone, including himself. Nowhere does his contempt for humanity come through more clearly however, than it does in his misogynistic attitudes when it comes to and for women. When it comes to misogyny, Flynt and Bill Clinton are definitely two peas in a pod. Maybe that is why they get along so well.

Now there may be those out there who may say that I do not know what I am talking about when it comes to HUSTLER Magazine, and that I should take a look at it for myself before passing judgement. The fact of the matter is that I did take a peek at one issue about twenty-three years ago when one of my Marine "buddies" thought I might be interested in it. I almost puked when he showed me one of the photos. It was that day I came to the conclusion that Larry Flynt was into what I had heard called hard-core and I knew what my Bishop had meant when he warned me about choosing my friends carefully.

Since then, the world has changed in many ways, and while many of them have been beneficial, not all of them have. Some of the changes have been very negative. Back then, there were no 1-900 numbers for phone sex at the rate of $3.99 a minute as we now see advertised in tabloid newspapers. There were no porn sites on the Internet to deal with that asked you for your charge card number – after all, there was no Internet in the public domain at that time. Marriages were not going down the tube because husbands were staring at a flickering computer screen through the night and running up big bills getting their jollies because their wives would not allow themselves to be degraded. I have seen the lives of people destroyed over the misuse of technology that I believe was designed to benefit mankind and help better fulfill its potential.

As indicated in my bio, I am a practicing Latter-day Saint. For those unfamiliar with that term, you may better know us as Mormons. One of the things many of us in the Church annually submit to is a worthiness interview in order to determine our eligibility to enter any of the Church’s 100 temples worldwide. In the interview, we are asked questions about how we are living our faith and if we are in compliance with church teachings. The reason I bring this up is because I remember my interview from three years ago rather well.

My wife and I had bought a computer about six weeks earlier, and that subject came up in the interview. I was asked by my Stake President if I was hooked up to the Internet, and I said that I was. He asked me if I surfed the web and about the sites I was visiting – which was a legitimate question considering some of the sites on the web. He then asked me if I had ever surfed any pornographic sites. I truthfully told him that not only had I not been on any porno sites, but that I had neither the interest nor inclination. I explained that I had a wife at home that I loved dearly and that doing so was not only selfish but would hurt her deeply as well as be incredibly destructive to the marriage. I was simply not willing to sacrifice my marriage for the sake of getting some momentary thrills.

There is no place for the sleaze and filth in our society that is peddled by either Larry Flynt, Hugh or Christie Hefner or Bob Guccione and the likes. The fact that the pornography industry and the Internet smut peddlers in particular favor Al Gore is but one more reason that we need to ensure that all our energies are spent to keep Gore out of the White House come next January. While George W. Bush may not have all the answers, I have substantially more faith in him to bring back decency, honor and integrity to America’s palace at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Great American cleansing can happen none too soon, don’t you think?

You can e-mail your comments to Timothy at trollins@idirect.com.

Copyright © 2000 by Timothy Rollins.
All Rights Reserved.

-Published with permission