Children's Safety Act proposal re sex scenes in ALL movies

[Pure]

anyone post on this before? it's widely reported.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001265009

Oct. 12, 2005
Buried clause could tag films, TV shows as porn
By Brooks Boliek

WASHINGTON -- Tucked deep inside a massive bill designed to track sex offenders and prevent children from being victimized by sex crimes is language that could put many Hollywood movies in the same category as hard-core, X-rated films.The provision added to the Children's Safety Act of 2005 would require any film, TV show or digital image that contains a sex scene to come under the same government filing requirements that adult films must meet.

Currently, any filmed sexual activity requires an affidavit that lists the names and ages of the actors who engage in the act. The film is required to have a video label that claims compliance with the law and lists where the custodian of the records can be found. The record-keeping requirement is known as Section 2257, for its citation in federal law. Violators could spend five years in jail.

Under the provision inserted into the Children's Safety Act, the definition of sexual activity is expanded to include simulated sex acts like those that appear in many movies and TV shows."It's a significant and unprecedented expansion of the scope of the law," one industry executive said. "I don't think the studios would like being grouped in with the hard-core porn industry."

The provision, written by Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., could have ramifications beyond simply requiring someone to ensure that the names and ages of actors who partake in pretend lovemaking as compliance with Section 2257 in effect defines a movie or TV show as a pornographic work under federal law. Industry sources say the provision was included in the bill at the behest of the Justice Department. Calls to Pence's office and the Justice Department went unreturned Tuesday.

On Pence's Web site, the congressman contends that the provision is meant to crack down on "so-called 'home pornographers' that use downloading on the Internet and digital and Polaroid photography to essentially create an at-home cottage industry for child pornography."Industry officials contend that the way the provision is written, a sex scene could trigger the provision even if the actors were clothed. While the language is designed to capture "lascivious exhibition of the genitals," other legal decisions have said that "lascivious exhibition" could occur when the genitals are covered.

The bill, with the Section 2257 provision included, already has been approved by the U.S. House of Representatives and is waiting consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

 

[zeb1094]

Just another example of a never ending expansion of a government out of control.

 

[velvetpie]

What the fuck happened to being a responsible parent???

 

[rgraham666]

What the fuck happened to being a responsible parent???

Too much fucking work.

 

[Guest]

Isn't there something in the constitution that is supposed to protect us from religious persecution? Or was that meant to protect just the christians who are persecuting everyone else now?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Isn't there something in the constitution that is supposed to protect us from religious persecution? Or was that meant to protect just the christians who are persecuting everyone else now?

The language in our laws and early history in this country were aimed at providing religious freedom to all by making toleration the norm. So Quakers were tolerated and catholoicism was tolerated and even cults like the shakers were tolerated. And everyone was assumed to have the freedom to worship whom and how they wanted to.

Politically motivated atheism started to take on this tradition of live & let live. the idea of toleration, to them, meant exclusion of religion from any public display. And while the Democrats controlled congress and, more often than not, the white house, they were supportive of this movement away from broad toleration of any religion to toleration of all by excluding all.

And we, as a nation, are paying the price for it now. We are paying for it because the religion that enjoyed the most exposure and thus sees itself as being the primary target of this movement to exclude all religion from public life, has taken a leading role in the ouster of the political party that allowed what it percived as this campaign against it to be carried out with governmental support.

You, personally, may not see it that way, but they do. And they is a very broad swath of Christians, from your hard core fundamentalists to many more relaxed congregations. By and large, they represent the grass roots support the GOP was never able to muster when the Dems coounted on the unions, minorities etc. And the GOP recognizes this is the group they have to pander too to keep that grass roots support. And they do.

Funny thing is, to keep this group politically motivated, the GOP can't really satisfy them. Satisfied people aren't generally politically angry. And in that, the GOP counts on the Democrats and those godsends tagged as "activist" judges.

Your post Dran, did remind of of the old saying that no one persecutes so viciously as those who have escaped persecuted minority status and have become the establishment. Religious folks in this country felt persecuted. Now that they are calling the shots, they fully intend to hit back.

And the vast majority of us, neither politically motivated atheists nor Religiously motivated fanatics, will continue to be caught in the middle and squeezed towards one end or the other, by the excess of the group in power at the time.

A microcosm really of how the ingrained hate of left & right have squeezed the middle so hard we now find ourselves a very polarized country. Something like an hourglass, bulging at the far ends, but constricted in the middle.

 

[Guest]

Thank you, Colly. I knew I could count on you to explain it far better and more eloquently than I. I was being sarcastic in the hopes it would offer some food for thought, You provided the feast.

 

[Guest]

Thank you, Colly. I knew I could count on you to explain it far better and more eloquently than I. I was being sarcastic in the hopes it would offer some food for thought, You provided the feast.

Ummmm... That goes for me too.

 

[rgraham666]

Colleen, I'm going to disagree with you a little.

Most people are somewhere in the middle, have a live and let live attitude.

But the people who don't are strongly motivated to obtain power and work very hard to achieve it.

A graph of attitudes would show the standard Bell Curve.

A graph of power would show the hourglass you describe.

 

[Pure]

Response to Colly; a few glimpses of intolerance in the colonial US.

Colly, I'm a little surprised at your account, which seems to put the origins of the intolerance problem with _politically motivated_ atheists such as Madalyn Murray OHair and the Warren Court of the 1960s. It may also be relevant that Madalyn and her daughter were murdered, and their bodies mutilated, in 1995. On OHair, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madalyn_Murray_O'Hair


I'm very surprised at your account of religious tolerance in the US, and its alleged application to Quakers as well as non-Protestants and non-Christians.

Below I've posted some excerpts from rather well written, mainstream history of the US (available on the internet, because its publication date), passages on the early period in Massachusetts. It's well to remember that the early Mass. settlers put the Ten Commandments on the books as law--with death penalty attached, and that they did carry out executions of dissenters and suspicious characters, as narrated below. Church membership was a voting requirement, and non attendance at the (one true) Church was subject to prosecution.

Most colonies had in their laws a requirement of Christianity for public office, and this policy, for state offices, was not overturned by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, when they were subsequently put in place.


http://www.usgennet.org/usa/topic/colonial/book/chap5_2.html

History of the United States of America, by Henry William Elson, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1904. Chapter IV, pp. 103-111.


But the great Puritan exodus was yet to begin, and as a large number of Puritans were now ready to join the colony, it was deemed far more satisfactory to have a royal charter than a mere land grant. A charter was therefore secured from Charles I in March, 1629, confirming the land grant of 1628, namely, from three miles south of the Charles River to a point three miles north of the Merrimac, extending westward to the Pacific Ocean which was believed to be much nearer than it is.

This new company was styled the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England. The government was to be placed in the hands of a governor, deputy governor, and eighteen assistants, to be elected annually by the company.4


This charter was very similar to the third charter of Virginia of 1612. But there was one remarkable point of difference; it did not provide, as did the Virginia charter, that the seat of government must remain in England. This omission led to the most important results in the building of New England. The year of the granting of the charter was the same in which the despotic king of England dismissed his Parliament and began his autocratic rule of eleven years without one.

The political situation, therefore, as well as religious persecution, rendered the Puritan party extremely uncomfortable in England. Consequently, a small party of leading Puritans met at Cambridge in August of this year and adopted the "Cambridge Agreement," to migrate to Massachusetts, on condition that the charter and seat of government be transferred thither.

To this the Massachusetts Bay Company agreed, and John Winthrop, a gentleman of wealth and education, one of the strongest and most admirable characters in the pioneer history of America, was chosen governor. Thomas Dudley was chosen deputy governor. A party of three hundred had been sent to join Endicott at Salem, and in April of the next year, 1630, Winthrop himself embarked, with a large company, for the New World.


The Pilgrims of 1620 were men of great zeal, but of little knowledge; many of the Puritans of 1630, however, were men of education and fortune,5 members of Parliament, or clergymen of the most liberal education. Led by such men, the movement created a profound impression in England, and thousands now prepared to cross the western ocean and take up their abode in the forests of New England.

More than a thousand came in 1630, and as the policy of the king and Laud became more intolerable, the tide increased in volume. The people came, not singly, nor as families merely, but frequently as congregations, led by their pastor.


Winthrop had brought with him the charter, and this was the first step in a very important process--the process of fusing the company and the colonists into one body. The second step, which soon followed, was the admitting of the colonists, or "freemen", to membership in the company. By this the company ceased to be a private trading company conducted for commercial gain; it became a body politic, a self-governing community.

The condition of freemanship was made, not property or educational test, but a religious qualification. The company was conservative and the process was slow. When there were 3000 settlers there were but 350 freemen, but the beginning of popular government was at hand. The ostensible object of the company, when it secured the charter, was to profit by trade; the real object was to establish a religious community with freedom of conscience, not for all, but for those only who were in religious accord with them. And the religious test for freemanship became the safeguard by which they secured for the future the end for which they had sacrificed so much. The matter of popular government, however, did not come without some friction, as we shall soon notice.


Some time after landing, Winthrop found a clear spring of water on a peninsula called Shawmut, and there he took up his abode, founded a town, and called it Boston. Newtown, now Cambridge, was the first capital, but Boston was soon chosen as the seat of government. Meantime, Roxbury, Charlestown, Watertown, Dorchester, and other towns were founded.

[…]
About twenty years after the Hutchinson episode [resulting in Anne Hutchinson's exile] another and more serious affair disturbed the peace of Massachusetts. The Quakers, a religous sect newly founded in England, began coming to Massachusetts in 1656. They refused to take an oath and many thought them Jesuits in disguise. Reports of their extreme fanaticism had reached the colonists, and the first arrivals were sent back.

Laws were then enacted to prohibit their coming, but they came in defiance of the laws. At length a law was passed (there was but one majority in the lower house) pronouncing the death sentence upon any Quaker who having been once banished, should return to the colony.

To the astonishment of all, a few of the banished ones returned and demanded the repeal of the cruel law. Their fanaticism increased witht the persecution; they walked the streets and entered the churches in a nude condition,8 denouncing the laws and the Puritan form of worship.

The authorities were perplexed. They had not expected to have occasion to enforce their harsh law; they had only meant to keep out people whom they despised. But now they must actually put these people to death or yield to their demand and repeal the law. They met in solemn conclave and again decided by one majority to enforce the law. Four of the Quakers were hanged.


But public opinion did not sustain the magistrates and the law was repealed. Thus the Quakers, by sacrificing a few lives, won a victory, and they eventually settled down and became quiet, useful citizens, devoting much of their energy to the conversion of the Indians.


Another popular delusion, still more serious in its results, was what is known as the Salem Witchcraft. This we notice here though it belongs to a later period [1692] . The witchcraft craze began on this wise. Some young girls who were in the habit of reading witch stories imagined themselves bewitched, and began to accuse an old Indian woman and others of bewitching them.

The tale was believed, and the excitement it caused spread like an epidemic. Hundreds of people, accused of beings witches, were thrown into prison; nineteen were hanged, one, an aged man, was pressed to death, and two died in prison before the crazy superstition had spent its force. [Chronology at
http://www.salemweb.com/memorial/ ]

It was not long until people awoke to the horror of the delusion, and then they bitterly repented their folly--as a drunkard, in his sober moments, mourns over the deeds of his delirium. It is unjust for later generations to make this delusion a ground of reproach upon the people of New England.

Be it remembered that witchcraft was believed in at this time in every part of the civilized world, and thousands had been put to death in Europe for the same case.9

When it is remembered, further, that the religion of the Puritans was austere and somber, that the people were given to the morbid habit of introspection, that they ever had to battle with the dark, frowning forest and the wily Indian [!!], and further that the age was a superstitious age--remembering all these things, we can only wonder that our forefathers were not more frequently the victims of some delusive craze than they were.

[end excerpt, History of the United States of America, by Henry William Elson, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1904. Chapter IV, pp. 103-111. ]

 

[Liar]

A graph of power would show the hourglass you describe.

Or rather, something like a pulse beat. A narrow segment of like-mided, well above or well below the bell curve centre, who work like hell to obtain power. But also comfortaby far away from the exteme ends, so that they can point at them, and thus, in the general populace's eyes be "at least not nazis".

 

[Bishonen]

How come it's OK to show kids cartoons where characters are blown to bits, hit over the head with pianos, or falling off high cliffs, but it's out of the question to let them see two consenting adults in bed together, making more children?

What IS it about sex that makes it so much more dangerous for young minds than violence?

 

[BigAndTall]

How come it's OK to show kids cartoons where characters are blown to bits, hit over the head with pianos, or falling off high cliffs, but it's out of the question to let them see two consenting adults in bed together, making more children?

What IS it about sex that makes it so much more dangerous for young minds than violence?

What cartoons show that now? Your thinking back (I think) to like Bugs Bunny which is not really shown anymore.

All the cartoons I see out now seem to me to be very non violent.

 

[Stella_Omega]

How come it's OK to show kids cartoons where characters are blown to bits, hit over the head with pianos, or falling off high cliffs, but it's out of the question to let them see two consenting adults in bed together, making more children?

What IS it about sex that makes it so much more dangerous for young minds than violence?

That kind of "funny" violence was never intended for kid's cartoons, Bish. The old "looney Toons" cartoons were really adult material. They got pre-empted into "Kiddie" TV shows during the sixties, when the TV stations were simply filling time slots, without worrying too much what went into them. And by the time moms started worrying about what their kids were seeing, the idea that Road Runner was for kids- had become a matter of general acceptance. That's changed again, though. Modern kid's shows are much more circumspect, violence-wise!

But that's neither here nor there, and I know what you're asking, and I agree with you wholeheartedly. On some newslist I used to belong to, I remember someone asking if "Silence of the Lambs" would be okay for her neice, or if there was...

...sex...

in it.

I pointed out that there was CANNIBALISM! in the damn thing, and why didn't she have a problem with that? And suddenly it was as if a dam had burst, as far as the other women were concerned.

 

[shereads]

One of my favorite Bill Maher moments from his HBO special is when he confronts the idea that children aren't necessarily a good reason to censor the activities of adults. Drugs, for example. We're supposed to object to drug use by adults because it might influence children and endanger their lives. Maher says, "Drugs have produced some great music. 'Dark Side of the Moon' is worth at least one kid's life, maybe a dozen."



Also, tax exemptions for churches and children. Maher says these exist "because it's assumed that we all want to encourage religion and the production of more children. I think there's too much of both."

 

[sweetnpetite]

It's a bill. There are tons of bills about all kinds of things. People get crazy bills in there all the time. Even if it goes through, I don't think that clause will hold up in court. Porn requires id on file because the actors are actually having sex. The sex that happens in an R or less rated movie is simulated and there are enough non-pornagraphic reasons why they might be included so that this would eventually (probably quickly) be overturned. Holliwood has enough clout and money to challenge this kind of thing and I"m pretty certain they would. If it does end up going through, I don't think it will effect the movie going public too much.

 

[LadyJeanne]

It's a bill. There are tons of bills about all kinds of things. People get crazy bills in there all the time. Even if it goes through, I don't think that clause will hold up in court. Porn requires id on file because the actors are actually having sex. The sex that happens in an R or less rated movie is simulated and there are enough non-pornagraphic reasons why they might be included so that this would eventually (probably quickly) be overturned. Holliwood has enough clout and money to challenge this kind of thing and I"m pretty certain they would. If it does end up going through, I don't think it will effect the movie going public too much.

Under the provision inserted into the Children's Safety Act, the definition of sexual activity is expanded to include simulated sex acts like those that appear in many movies and TV shows.

I could see how this would affect TV shows like the OC and One Tree Hill and the departed Dawson's Creek. Simulated teen sex would be the first target under this bill, I'd imagine.

 

[Bishonen]

One of my favorite Bill Maher moments from his HBO special is when he confronts the idea that children aren't necessarily a good reason to censor the activities of adults. Drugs, for example. We're supposed to object to drug use by adults because it might influence children and endanger their lives. Maher says, "Drugs have produced some great music. 'Dark Side of the Moon' is worth at least one kid's life, maybe a dozen."



Also, tax exemptions for churches and children. Maher says these exist "because it's assumed that we all want to encourage religion and the production of more children. I think there's too much of both."

I'm torn, now. I agree with the latter part of your quote, not the former.

Everyone knows "Dark Side of the Moon" sucks.

 

[shereads]

The language in our laws and early history in this country were aimed at providing religious freedom to all by making toleration the norm. So Quakers were tolerated and catholoicism was tolerated and even cults like the shakers were tolerated. And everyone was assumed to have the freedom to worship whom and how they wanted to.

Politically motivated atheism started to take on this tradition of live & let live. the idea of toleration, to them, meant exclusion of religion from any public display. And while the Democrats controlled congress and, more often than not, the white house, they were supportive of this movement away from broad toleration of any religion to toleration of all by excluding all.

And we, as a nation, are paying the price for it now. We are paying for it because the religion that enjoyed the most exposure and thus sees itself as being the primary target of this movement to exclude all religion from public life, has taken a leading role in the ouster of the political party that allowed what it percived as this campaign against it to be carried out with governmental support.

You, personally, may not see it that way, but they do. And they is a very broad swath of Christians, from your hard core fundamentalists to many more relaxed congregations. By and large, they represent the grass roots support the GOP was never able to muster when the Dems coounted on the unions, minorities etc. And the GOP recognizes this is the group they have to pander too to keep that grass roots support. And they do.

Funny thing is, to keep this group politically motivated, the GOP can't really satisfy them. Satisfied people aren't generally politically angry. And in that, the GOP counts on the Democrats and those godsends tagged as "activist" judges.

Your post Dran, did remind of of the old saying that no one persecutes so viciously as those who have escaped persecuted minority status and have become the establishment. Religious folks in this country felt persecuted. Now that they are calling the shots, they fully intend to hit back.

And the vast majority of us, neither politically motivated atheists nor Religiously motivated fanatics, will continue to be caught in the middle and squeezed towards one end or the other, by the excess of the group in power at the time.

A microcosm really of how the ingrained hate of left & right have squeezed the middle so hard we now find ourselves a very polarized country. Something like an hourglass, bulging at the far ends, but constricted in the middle.

I can't recall a period in American history when proclaiming oneself a member of the majority religion - Christianity - made someone the underdog. Mormons were run out of town by traditional Christians; Jews suffered discrimination in this country as in many others; Catholics have suffered discrimination at the hands of Protestants in communities where they were outnumbered...But Christians? Even among Democrats, they are and have always been the majority.

Islam may eventually catch up, but until then, Christians will have a financial and political advantage against which athiests, agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, Rastafarians and advocates of God-ordained multiple marriage will have one hell of a time competing. Christians in America are about as likely to suffer from real persecution as white anglo-saxon males with MBAs. It may be frustrating when the people who've been bulldozed by the majority begin to fight back, and sometimes win against all odds, but it hardly qualifies as persecution.

"In God(s) Some Of Us Trust" won't appear on our currency for a white yet. More importantly, no Christian can honestly call himself persecuted as long as the battle lines are drawn where they are: in public schools and on [/i]public[/i] property, which have the distinction of being funded and used by taxpayers who are not exclusively Christian.

Imagine an America where the majority believe that every child in the public schools can benefit from a harmless moment of non-denominational prayer or meditation while kneeling toward Mecca, and you can imagine what it's like to live in the current time as an agnostic or a member of any non-Christian faith.

Maybe you define persecution differently than I do. I don't see the legal battles against school prayer and government-countenanced displays of Christian religious symbols as an example of persecution, but as an attempt by the minority to defend the constitutional boundary that protects us from the establishment of Christianity as a state religion. You have used the same logic in defending the NRA's refusals to compromise on issues like the regulation of automatic weapons and "cop-killer" bullets. When someone challenges on constitutional grounds the use of the words "under God" in the pledge his child is asked to recite each day in school, he's doing the same thing.

The Scopes trial was a historic victory only because the minority view prevailed. Does it qualify as persecution of Christians by an activist judge?

 

[Pure]

Supreme Court abetted persecution?

From Wikipedia:

In 1960 Murray filed a lawsuit (Murray v. Curlett) against the Baltimore, Maryland School District in which she claimed it was unconstitutional for her son William to participate in Bible readings at Baltimore public schools. She further went on to claim that her son's atheism had made him the victim of violence from other classmates, violence which she claimed was overlooked by administrators who didn't care if injury were to befall an atheist. In 1963 this suit (amalgamated with the similar Abington School District v. Schempp) reached the United States Supreme Court which voted 8-1 in her favor, effectively banning 'coercive' public prayer and Bible-reading at public schools in the United States. Public opinion was such that in 1964 Life magazine referred to Madalyn Murray as the most hated woman in America.

This initial victory in banning prayer was an 8-1 decision; the year was 1963. Clearly a number of Republican and conservative judges were involved. Clearly a number of Christian judges were involved. (I don't have time to dig up bios.).

So it's VERY strange to have that decision as a key point in what Colly alleges is a rising persecution of Christians.

Indeed, since Murray was hated, threatened, reviled, and ultimately murdered, it's pretty clear which group is on the receiving end of persecution.

 

[sweetnpetite]

I could see how this would affect TV shows like the OC and One Tree Hill and the departed Dawson's Creek. Simulated teen sex would be the first target under this bill, I'd imagine.

I don't think that would be covered because the actors, though playing teens, were adults. So they could have there birthdays on file and be covered.

A couple of years ago there was a court case about a law concerning manipulated images showing children in sex acts, nudity, pornogrophy ect. The court determined that manipulated images where not illegal and were not child porn (according to the law) becuase no child was harmed in the making of the pictures. I'm pretty sure that ruling would apply here as well.

 

[Liar]

I don't think that would be covered because the actors, though playing teens, were adults. So they could have there birthdays on file and be covered.

That's not always the case. Often, yes. But there are teenage actors in tv series and movies, acting in dramas, comedies, whatever about de facto teenage issues, including sexuality. The intent is not in those cases to arouse the viewer, but to tell a story about real life issues, which is what makes the difference IMO.

They showed Thirteen on tv a few days ago. A serious drama about teenage rebellion. The two girls in the lead roles were 15 and 16 when it was filmed, and it contains if not simulated intercourse so at least a whole lot of sexual behaviour. I could see that one easily being targeted. Or Ken Park, where the main character has sex, and the actor was 17 or 16 at the time of filming. Not porn. Serious movies. But movies that I suspect could be tagged as child pornography and banned under that law.