Please forward.

The U. S. Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision (as early as today) regarding the constitutionality of displays of the Ten Commandments. As soon as we have their decision, we will send out an update.

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IMPORTANT HEARING

On Thursday, June 23rd at 2:00 p.m., the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Constitution, chaired by Senator Sam Brownback will be holding a hearing in the Dirksen Office Building to discuss Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, and to call upon the U. S. Supreme Court to reverse both decisions.

Sybil Lash, our good friend and head of Operation Outcry in Georgia, will be attending the hearings with Sandra Bolton. Please pray for Sybil, Sandra and others who will be testifying.

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HOUSE VOTES DOWN ATTEMPT TO RESTORE FUNDING TO UNITED NATIONS POPULATION FUND

Last week, by a vote of 233-192 the U. S. House voted down an amendment offered by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) to do away with enforcing any provision of law that prohibits or restricts funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). UNFPA continues to subsidize Communist China’s coercive population control program, which has prompted the Bush Administration to redirect funds away from UNFPA under the Kemp-Kasten legal provision. Maloney and her supporters were trying to circumvent that provision and restore the funding.

Voting for the Maloney Amendment were Georgia Representatives Barrow, Bishop, Lewis, McKinney and Scott.

Voting against the amendment were Georgia Representatives Deal, Gingrey, Kingston, Linder, Marshall, Norwood, Price and Westmoreland.

UPCOMING LEGISLATION ON IMMIGRATION REFORM (Source: FAIR)

H. R. 2330/S.1033 Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act. Reps. Kolbe and Flake (R-AZ) and Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) are sponsors in the House. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) are sponsors in the Senate.

This bill seeks to provide amnesty to al illegal aliens with work experience in the U. S., as well as their families. It rewards them with green cards and a path to U. S. citizenship. The bill also seeks to create a new massive guest worker program that allows “guests” to remain permanently. This “guest” worker program is not tied to any one job sector, which means American workers in all sectors of the economy could face unfair competition from cheaper foreign workers. The new program would also allow the market to dictate the number of “guest” workers permitted each year, providing employers with an endless supply of cheaper foreign labor. ACTION: Oppose.

H.R. 884/S. 359 The Agricultural Job, Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act of 2005 (AgJOBS). Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) is sponsoring this in the House and Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) is sponsoring this in the Senate.

This bill seeks to reward all illegal aliens working in agriculture and their families with amnesty, as well as vastly liberalize our current agricultural guest worker program to provide employers with a steady supply of cheaper foreign labor. ACTION: Oppose.

H. R. 688 Securing America’s Future through Enforcement Reform Act of 2005 (SAFER). This bill is sponsored by Rep. Gresham Barrett (R-SC) in the House.

This comprehensive bill is designed to strengthen border and interior enforcement, close terrorist-friendly loopholes in current immigration law, restrict chain migration for legal immigrants, and impose an emergency immigration workload reduction until several measurable enforcement benchmarks are achieved. ACTION: Support.

H. R. 1912 Emergency Immigration Workload Reduction and Homeland Security Enhancement Act of 2005. This bill is sponsored by Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO) in the House.

This bill would suspend certain nonessential visas in order to provide temporary workload reduction critical to the success of the immigration component of the recently established Department of Homeland Security. ACTION: Support.

Contact info for your Representative or Senator go to www.gachristiancoalition.org.

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DOMAIN ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB FOR THE PORN INDUSTRY?

The following is an article written by Jan LaRue, Chief Counsel for Concerned Women for America. It is lengthy, but worth your time. There is contact info at the end of the article to voice your opinion on the proposed XXX porn rating on the Internet.

Will the Department of Commerce OK a XXX Internet Domain? (Human Events Online)
by Jan LaRue
Posted Jun 15, 2005

Unless the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) withholds its approval, the porn industry will have its own domain on the World Wide Web, .xxx. Proponents of the domain say that Web sites such as “Hardcore porn.xxx,” “Rape Porn.xxx,” or “XXXporn.xxx” will make it easier for parents and software filtering companies to protect kids from “adult” material. As if “Hardcore porn.com,” “Rape Porn.com,” or “XXX porn.com,” leave them clueless.

If approved, the porn industry and its allies will be free to self-regulate and operate the domain, which would be entirely voluntary. Internet porn site operators would be free to participate on the .xxx domain and be free to remain on any other Internet domain on which they are registered. Double their pleasure and double their fun while expanding their reach and making it easier for kids to find their porn.

The controversy over the .xxx domain comes in the midst of an announcement Tuesday by the Florida Family Association (FFA): “Two of the largest Internet porn companies in the world operate with alleged addresses in Miami and Orlando, Florida.” FFA’s programmed special software, dubbed “PornCrawler,” “searched the World Wide Web, identified porn sites and summarized which companies operate those sites. PornCrawler analyzed 297 million links and found that 20 companies in the United States account for over 70 percent of the pornography posted on the World Wide Web.”

FFA says “it provided all the details, via certified mail, regarding the two major Internet porn companies in Florida to the U.S. attorneys in Florida’s Middle and Southern Districts” and “asked the U.S. attorneys to investigate these companies and bring appropriate prosecution.”

Allowing an industry that produces and distributes hard-core pornography prosecutable under the federal obscenity laws to voluntarily self-regulate makes as much sense as allowing Murder Incorporated to regulate hit men who voluntarily register with www.wackjobsrus.mob. No need for the killjoy, meddlesome feds to interfere by enforcing federal law.

Five years ago, the Internet Corporation for Assigning Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Internet’s nonprofit oversight body, rejected a similar proposal. This month, ICANN approved the application submitted by ICM Registry Inc. of Jupiter, Florida, a technology company.

ICM Registry has a two-page “fact sheet” titled, “ICANN Approves .xxx Sponsored Top-Level Domain (TLD) Application,” on its Web site, www.icmregistry.com. According to this, when ICANN approved the application it “directed its staff to enter into negotiations with ICM Registry to develop the commercial and technical terms under which the .xxx sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) would launch.” ICM will do the negotiating and “will provide the registry’s management, supporting infrastructure and back-end functionality.”

The sponsor and “policy-making authority” of the “proposed TLD is the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR), an independent Canadian nonprofit entity. IFFOR will be governed by a board of directors that reflects the various stakeholder groups, and will remain independent of ICM Registry. IFFOR’s board of directors will include “child-safety representatives, members of the free-speech community and adult-entertainment industry leaders.”

ICM’s “fact sheet” reminds readers 12 times that the .xxx domain will be “voluntary” “self-regulation.” The snake oil PR says:

.xxx TLD name registrants will be expected to adhere to a set of best business practices that will include:

• Safeguarding children from being marketed to or targeted online by adult webmasters;
• Defending customer privacy;
• Deploying accurate meta-tagging;
• Ensuring the clear and accurate disclosure of relevant practices, security of information and transactions, and accountability through the provision of accurate contact information;
• Protecting intellectual property rights;
• Combating the use of unlawful malicious codes and technologies, including spoofing and pfishing;
• Not engaging in fraudulent, anonymous, unsolicited or illegal commercial e-mail advertising their products and services; and
• Avoiding the use of misleading domain names or domain names intended to attract child pornography consumers.

This list of expectations is an admission of the current egregious practices of the Internet porn industry. Who believes that an industry supposedly concerned about child safety and child pornography would oppose every law Congress enacts, including a regulation directed at pornographic cable television signal bleed, the Child Pornography Protection Act of 1996 (virtual child porn), the Children’s Internet Protection Act (requiring libraries accepting federal subsidies to use technology to block access to illegal porn), the Child Online Protection Act (prohibiting free porn teaser images available to children), the Misleading Domain Names on the Internet Amendment, the Can Spam Act, and the record-keeping regulations required of pornographers to prove that no minors are used in their material, 18 U.S.C. 2257?

I keep forgetting. They’re going to voluntarily self-regulate.

According to media reports, not everyone in the porn industry is behind the .xxx domain because they fear that the voluntary regulations will become mandatory. According to the Associated Press, June 12, 2005, “Robert Corn-Revere, a lawyer hired by ICM to address free-speech issues, said the company has pledged $250,000 for a legal defense fund to keep ‘.xxx’ voluntary.”

Not ones to avoid hypocrisy in their quest to avoid mandatory enforcement of federal laws, the smut industry loves and takes advantage of the federal copyright laws, which protect “intellectual property rights.” Who can’t appreciate how much “intellectual” energy is expended on “gonzo” porn (wall-to-wall sex acts) with “no plot” or “no dialogue to get in your way”? Makes you wonder how moans and groans qualify for a copyright.

Citizens concerned about the proliferation of pornography can contact the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330, Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6601; Phone: 1-310-823-9358; FAX: 1-310-823-8649; General Email: icann@icann.org

Or contact the Department of Commerce and urge the DOC to refuse to approve the .xxx TLD. The person to contact at the Office of Public Affairs is Christine Gunderson at (202) 482-4883. E-mails can be sent to the Department of Commerce at: publicaffairs@ntia.doc.gov. And while you’re at it, call Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to thank him for his commitment to enforce the federal obscenity laws and his formation of the obscenity task force, and to urge the Department of Justice to investigate the 20 companies identified by our friends at the FFA.

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Thank you for Keeping The Faith.
Sadie Fields