Indecency Bill Passed to Clean Up Media ''Pigsty''
The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted overwhelming to increase fines on broadcasters for on-air event considered obscene, indecent or profane.
The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted overwhelming to increase fines on broadcasters for on-air events considered obscene, indecent or profane. The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which the House passed in a 389-38 vote, increases fines dramatically to as much as $500,000.
According to the Baptist Press news agency, supporters of the legislation believe increasing the fines will work to reduce television and radio programming considered indecent by Federal Communications Commission guidelines.
“Hurray and kudos to the House for doing the right thing and taking the first step toward cleaning up the pigsty that popular entertainment has become,” said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “The airwaves belong to the people, and the people’s representatives need to enforce decency standards."
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Others, however, believe that unless indecency laws are enforced, nothing will change and families will continue to be battered by indecent content. Pat Trueman, the senior legal counsel for the Family Research Council, told Crosswalk.com that measures such as the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005 huge steps in the right direction. But strong statutes against indecency sill do no good if they are not enforced, he said.
"We also have to get the law enforced correctly so it's a 'per utterance' enforcement," the FRC spokesman says. "One show lasting an hour that has five or six indecent images in it should be five or six penalties." Enforcement such as that, he adds, "would really put the fear of God into these networks."
Trueman said fines of those magnitudes would not only get the attention of giant media corporations, but likely would also cause local affiliates to exercise much greater caution in what they allowed to be aired by their station.
Meanwhile arguments from the small minority in opposition include charges the bill would be an act of government censorship, however defenders of the measure say it provides the muscle needed hopefully to cause federal licensees to refrain from broadcasting, as the bill describes it, “obscene, indecent, or profane material.”
Pro-family organizations have long criticized the sexual content, plus obscene and profane language, on prime-time television. The Super Bowl’s controversial halftime show last year, however, pushed the issue into the national spotlight and motivated Congress to act.
