Time to take a stand
August 30, 2007 by afp
Filed under *AFP.com News/Events
Stop the Presses column by Chris Graham
I think I’ve been too hard on Staunton officials who have dared to suggest that they will take any means necessary to prevent a porn store from setting up shop in town.
I mean, I’m all for the First Amendment, but I don’t know that I have to be so much for it that I endorse porn.
Really, I’m not sure that the founding fathers were thinking of Jugs when they were mulling over the freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
You know?
And honestly, it’s not like those who want to do whatever it is that they want to do with porn have to go to some store on Springhill Road to get it.
Hell, it’s already in your house – if you have the Internet or digital cable.
And why would you want to leave the privacy of your home to go buy or rent a DVD or pick up the latest copy of Big Butts when you could access high-quality porn with a click of the computer mouse or the push of a couple of buttons on the TV remote?
Of course, this makes the stand against a porn shop being able to do business in Staunton all that more quixotic.
Seriously, we’re not outright banning porn in Staunton here or anything.
People can still get it at any of a number of local convenience stores, even if they don’t get it at home on their TV or their computer.
Same as they can indulge their other vices here in town – whether their vice be beer or liquor or cigarettes or state-sanctioned gambling.
It seems to me that if we follow through with this fight against a porn store, we have several other ones on our hands with everything else that’s bad for you.
But that’s just me.
Maybe this is the stand that we need to take.
Maybe we need to say no to “Big Honkin’ Cans” in Staunton.
Maybe there is a line, and this is it – and we need to put our collective foot down.
Or maybe we just need to relax and realize that this, too, will run its course.
I give the store six months – if it ever does open up, that is.
Chris Graham is the author of Stop the Presses: A Collection of Columns. More information on the book is available at www.authorchrisgraham.com.
kestrel9000 on Thu, 30th Aug 2007 12:49 pm
There’s that, “why do you need it” again.
That’s like some of my more irritating colleagues on the political left telling me I do not need high capacity magazines for my semiautomatic rifle.
It’s not about what I “need.”
It’s about my RIGHTS.
And as to the First Amendment: what type of speech would need protecting that is not offensive to some?
Don’t like the porn shop?
Don’t go in there.
Don’t build it next to an elementary school or a residential district, hang a “No Minors” sogn on the door, and if somebody, after those reasonable restrictions, has a problem with it…well, then they have a problem.
And I bet I can guess what it is.
Probably the same type of problem that led Idaho’s larry Craig to be a rabid anti-gay activist.
It’s called, “projecting.”
chrisgraham on Thu, 30th Aug 2007 2:00 pm
It doesn’t bother me one way or the other – but that said, the store will run its course, and when it does, it won’t be because of Ray Robertson or any of the other moral police. It will be because porn shops are an anachronism in today’s society. Much like daily newspapers. They’re quaint, nothing more.
Commentator on Fri, 31st Aug 2007 12:24 pm
If you don’t like having an adult store in Staunton, don’t go there and don’t let your kids go there.
Otherwise, just let it be. Fearless Ray Robertson, Peoples Attorney, will fuster and bluster enough for all of us.
chrisgraham on Fri, 31st Aug 2007 1:09 pm
I don’t care if it opens or it doesn’t. My thought is as a businessman I don’t think it makes sense to do one in a small market like a Staunton.