Months ago, I was trying to think of something meaningful to undertake now that I've basically been retired by my health situation. In working with Ray and Cathy at CCPC, I've become very aware of what different children are going through. Some come from homes where there is domestic violence. In some cases there are parents using drugs or alcohol. Sometimes there is abuse and pornography in the house. Sex is such a pervasive element in our society, with magazine, billboard, and television advertising, and schlock-media programs like "A Current Affair," "Geraldo," and "Oprah." I don't like seeing certain magazines on display at the grocery store, and it hurts when I see a young boy furtively thumbing through the pages while tring to act nonchalant. I don't think ot's healthy for children to get distirted sexual perceptions imprinted on their young hearts. Sex should be something which they discover, not out of a "men's magazine" or Cosmopolitan, but within the bonds of a loving marriage.

I've travelled around the world and seen unbelivably sick publications, vacuum-wrapped yet openly displayed, on the shelf in airports. The covers aren't hiding anything. What has been more shocking to me is that in talking with different people in these particular countries, I've found out that child pornography is one of the most lucrative enterprises in all of pornography. There is a world-wide market for such fare, and it flourishes. It is priced many times higher than adult porn. It is distributed into every country. It remains invisible to most people and moves through a highly sophisticated underground which not only distributes the material but also creates it by kidnapping children, using them sexually during the filming and photography and then discarding them, when they become older and lose their looks or "snuffing them" should they become a liability which risks the arrest of the makers of child pornography.

When I met some people who were also angry about child pornography, I decided to try, however I could, to help get a resolution voted into the State Constitutuion of Oregon by collecting signatures in time for an initiative on the next ballot, which would provide a legal amendment to help fight against child pornography. I had been working, very occasionally, on Pushing Back The Darkness buring 1993 and into 1994. I realized that perhaps I could make a compilation of the work in progress and have CCPC give free copies of the CD to people who helped raise signatures. I couldn't really walk around, out in the sun, collecting signatures myself, but signatures were what was needed - not wishful thinking. I wrote a letter to everyone I knew in Oregon and to the people on the mailing list who I thought might be willing to help in the fight to help mobilize their communities and make them aware of the issue. Whatever copies of the CD which were left over could be distributed to other states, because child pornography is widespread and more people should be informed on the issue.

Before discussing hard-core child pornography, you need to know some hard core facts.

1. There are more outlets for pornography in the United States than McDonald's restaurants. (This is a statistic from the National Coalition Against Pornography.)

2. A child is sexually molested every 47 seconds in the United States. As many as 90% of the abused children questioned revealed that they were shown adult hard-core pornography prior to molestation. (Children's Legal Foundation)

3. A child molester usually has from ten to thirty victims "on a string" at one time. A typical child molester will sexually abuse more than one hundred children in a lifetime, and many of these abused children grow up with sexual dysfunction which causes them to perpetrate child molestation later in life. One out of three girls and one out of seven boys will be sexually molested by age 18. (Dr. Eugene Abel, Emory University)

4. In Oregon, 3092 cases of child sexual abuse were confirmed in 1992, alone. Obviously, many cases go unreported. (Children Services Division) And in Oregon, in 1991, there were 1552 rapes reported. Usually, only one in ten rapes is reported. Many of these rapes were against children. (Oregon Law Enforcement Data System statistic)

5. There are over 300,000 children in the United States currently involved in child pornography. This includes not only commercial hard-core movies and magazines, but white slavery victims who are passed around for home videos and parties and sexual use.

6. Child molesters photograph children during sexual exhibition and sexual activities. These photos are then traded with other child molesters all over America. We know this because of the testimony of convicted child molesters and materials collected from child porn middle men and warehouses.

7. Interviews have revealed that 87% of child molesters admit to regular use of pornography. Death row inmates have admitted that their rape and murder assaults were directly related to years of exposure to pornography. Liberals and the A.C.L.U. have consistently suppressed this information for fear that the public will tie this to "freedom of the press" issues and threaten the First Amendment "rights" of publishers. But this is a bitter statistic.

8. Child molesters use hard-core pornography for three reasons: to stimulate themselves, to corrupt the conscience and lower the inhibitions of the children they victimise, and as teaching tools for children to imitate in the indoctrination process.

9. There are over four million child molesters living in America at this time. Some are in prison. Some are out on parole.

10. Pornography is a $3 Billion-a-year business. (FBI statistic)


These are just a few statistics I thought you might be interested in knowing. In my own personal experience, about one third of the friends I've known through my adult years were sexually molested as children - by their fathers, by neighbors, by relatives - almost always by people they knew and trusted. But after all, we all know dozens of people at any time in our life. Strangers don't have to stray very far out of their own circle to find children to molest.


THE PROBLEM AT HAND:

The Federal Government and The Supreme Court have already recognised child pornography as being "obscene" and, therefore, "illegal." But the Oregon Supreme Court has not yet amended its State Constitution with a resolution making it illegal to possess. They have, in accordance with the Supreme Court, made it illegal to create it, manufacture it, distribute it, sell it, and buy it - but have neglected to make it illegal to possess. How can this be? How can a person possess pornography without having purchased it? How can it be illegal to buy but not illegal to own. That's what we have an opportunity to change with the next Oregon state ballot.