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Enough Is Enough has assembled a board of technology experts to help it develop strategies to defeat porn in its new technologies. Donna Rice Hughes, who gained notoriety because of her relationship with politician Gary Hart, says many of these new technologies grew out of defense research. So her group took its experts from the defense industry as well.

"The main thing we need to do is protect our children by making parents aware that [cyberporn] is out there," Munsil says. "You can no more leave your children alone to travel the information superhighway than you can leave them alone in Times Square in New York . … You've got to supervise your children when they're on a computer system and not let them have hours and hours to fiddle around on a bulletin board system."

Christians also need to recognize that laws usually allow for prosecution of such transmissions, Munsil says. "The laws are there; it's a matter of enforcement."

Janet LaRue is working to toughen California laws against child pornography. LaRue, who was victimized as a child, says pornography is "nothing but molestation" and urges churches to raise the level of their involvement. "Most churches are unaware of the problem and the fact that there are men in churches who are not only viewers of pornography but are addicted to it."

Kirk says, "We haven't believed God wanted us to go after the scientific world, the media world, the education world. We need to begin to believe God and not believe our limited abilities."

In some ways, the fight against pornography is a war of attrition, a grueling test to see which side will outlast the other. Kaplan says pornographers are in the business for one reason: to make money. According to the New York Times, one West Coast firm, Evil Angel Productions, reported gross revenues are "skyrocketing" from $34,000 in 1990 to more than $1 million this year. Adult Video News, a trade journal, says rentals and retail sales of adult videos have grown to $2 billion annually. And the industry is quickly moving into new technologies, such as interactive compact disks. In Rhode Island, South Pointe Enterprises Inc., a publicly traded adult entertainment firm, is digitizing some films for playback on personal computers.

Kaplan, commenting on the profit motive of the industry, says, "They don't care about speech rights, the rights of women, religious freedom—any of these loftier goals that are put out there in the public forum as reasons to protect what they're doing.

"So even when they are breaking the law, they will continue breaking the law until citizens gather and fight."

Copyright 1994 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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September 12 1994, Vol. 38, No. 10