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deviancy or severe emotional disturbances".

While it is a fact that a significant percentage of nationally recognized psychiatric authorities and many law enforcement officials at all levels of jurisdiction would disagree with that statement, the important point I want to make here is that the reasons for obscenity laws are not contained in the statement. Obscenity laws have existed historically in recognition of the need to protect the public morality.

I submit that never in the history of modern civilization have we seen more obvious evidence of a decline in public morality than we see today. Venereal disease is at epidemic proportions and literally out of control in many large urban centers--despite medicine. Illegitimacy statistics are skyrocketing --despite the pill and other contraceptive devices--and despite the relatively easy access to abortion. Both of these social statistics reflect a promiscuous attitude toward sex which is no doubt contributed to by many factors--but certainly one factor has to be the deluge of pornography which is screaming at young people from records, motion picture screens, newsstands, the United States mail and their peer groups.

To say that pornography has no effect is patently ridiculous.

I submit that if pornography does not affect a person--that person has a problem. Pornography is intended to arouse the sexual appetite--one of the most volatile appetites of human nature. Once that appetite is aroused, it will seek satisfaction--and the satisfaction sought--without proper moral

restraints--is often reflected in the social statistics discussed above.

Proponents of legalized pornography claim that pornography is

actually good because it protects society from the sex deviate who might other

wise commit anti-social conduct. He can now read dirty books and get his

kicks that way. They point to a 31 percent decrease in sex crimes in

Copenhagen to support this thesis.

The fact is that in a society such as modern Copenhagen where pre-marital sex and illegitimacy bear no social stigma; where hardcore pornography is sold at every corner kiosk and at the "porno" or "sex shops" that dot the city; where live sex shows are legally conducted and exploited in the daily newspapers; where prostitutes block the sidewalks and wave from apartment windows; in such a society I am amazed that any sex crimes are reported. Yet the Chief of Police of Copenhagen, Closter Christionsen, in an interview in January, 1970, with Ray Gauer, National Director of Citizens for Decent Literature, pointed out that violent sex crimes of forcible rape and assault had not decreased in that city since legalization of obscenity. The only reason for a 31 percent statistical decrease in sex crimes is the fact that what was previously considered a crime is either now ignored or legal.

Denmark is currently experiencing the worst epidemic of venereal

disease among young people of any nation in the world.

In addition to the social problems of venereal disease and illegitimacy,

it is also of the very nature of obscenity to degrade sex and distort the

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role that sex plays in a normal life. There is no way to measure the
terrible effects that pornography has had and is having on marital
infidelity that is reflected in divorce statistics, abortions, suicide,
and other social problems that further reflect the decline in public
morality.

The effects of obscenity on society can best be summed up
by repeating here a quotation written in 1705 by Alexander Pope:

Vice is a monster of so frightful mein,
As to be hated, only needed to be seen.
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

The majority report of the Presidential Commission on Obscenity and

Pornography would have America embrace the monster vice.

Positive Approaches

wrote:

Whittaker Chambers (Witness, Henry Regnery Company, Chicago)

It is idle to talk about preventing the wreck of Western
civilization. It is already a wreck from within. That is
why we can hope to do little more now than snatch a fin-
gernail of a saint from the rack or a handful of ashes
from the fagotts, and bury them secretly in a flowerpot
against the day, ages hence, when a few men begin again
to dare to believe that there was once something else,
that something else is thinkable, and need some evidence
of what it was, and the fortifying knowledge that there
were those who, at the great nightfall, took loving thought
to preserve the tokens of hope and truth.

Chambers was negative: and as he looked upon our society, it was, indeed,
difficult for him to be positive. As I look upon the Report of the Positive
Approaches Panel and find them concerned with sex education ("how to do
it"), I have difficulty breaking away from the pessimism of Chambers.

Nevertheless, without indulging in the temptation to make a

detailed but obvious reply to the Positive Approaches Panel Report which
advocates sex education without reference to morality, God, or religion,

I find there are some positive considerations which should be mentioned.
First of all, the United States gives to each and every one of us

a constitutional prerogative heretofore denied to citizens in the history
of nations; namely, the undeniable right of free speech and free press
guaranteed under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to our Constituion.
Throughout history, nations have declined and disappeared coincidental
with the rise of the libertines and the moral anarchists in their midst.

Here one sees a corresponding denial of freedom and liberty to the
dissenting and right-minded people in those societies. It is historically
accurate to say that those who would free the creatures of vice would
enslave the proponents of decency. Thus, contrary to those nations wherein
free speech was denied as libertines obtained power, in the United States
we are guaranteed--and our courts will protect--our right to speak.
Accordingly, it is possible for me, as a member of this Commission, to
obtain per force my right to dissent. It is possible for me and every reader
of this opinion to bespeak decency, morality, God--indeed, sanctity and

purity throughout this land. encourage everyone to take.

champion of your principles.

This, to me, is a positive approach which I

In short, be an articulate, outspoken

That is guaranteed to you; and given your

time and attention, the common sense and the logic of your position will

prevail.

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St. Paul, in a letter to the Ephesians, points out a very positive

approach. He said:

Be imitators of God as very dear children, and follow the
way of love, as Christ also loved you and gave himself for
us, an offering to God, a sacrifice of pleasing fragrance.
As for fornication or any kind of uncleanness or lust, let it
not be mentioned among you; such is the rule for the saints.
Nor should there be any obscenity, or silly and suggestive
talk; all that is out of place. Instead, give thanks. And
make no mistake about this: no fornicator, no unclean or
lustful person, who is really an idolator, has any inheritance
in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Do not let anyone
deceive you by worthless arguments; these are the sins
that bring down God's wrath upon the disobedient; so have
nothing to do with them. It is true that you were once dark-
ness; but now you are light in the Lord. Live, then, as
children of light; for light produces every kind of goodness
and justice and truth.

Alexis Carrel makes an excellent point when he says:

Let us send our sons and daughters, but first let us obtain
from them a mode of life which imposes on them a constant
effort, a psychological and moral discipline and privation,
then we will create an ascetic and mystical minority which
will rapidly acquire an irresistible power over this self-
indulgent and spineless majority. Without this moral self-
denial, intelligence itself becomes anemic. The problem
then is not what to do with our own sons and daughters,
it is who will train them in the Ten Commandments and
morality before they are 16 and 17.

Instead of sex education, i. e., teaching "how to do it," we ought to try

Carrel's solution.

As far as sex education is concerned, I am not qualified to comment. Perhaps it is a "give-away" that it is included in a report on pornography.

I have seen sex education text books based on Drs. Masters and Johnson.

Such references to the works of those "kooks" for impressionable children are difficult to comprehend.