Open Letter

Senator Thad Cochran

The Honorable Trent Lott

Representative Gene Taylor

Federal Communications Commission Chairman

Kevin J. Martin

Dear Sirs:

In recent years we have been subjected to numerous gaffs by the television media from the exposing, accidentally of course, of Janet Jackson’s breast by Justin Timberlake during the CBS Superbowl, to the foul language of certain TV personalities on shows that are not primetime, to TV shows that are about subject matter that should best be kept in the bedroom and not my livingroom. And now ABC’s latest profanity makes me say, “I’ve had enough.”

I don’t keep up with NASCAR, but my esteemed colleague told me Thursday morning that if he’d been watching the race with his daughter he would have been screaming mad. When one of the drivers exited his car, the first words out of his mouth were taking the Lord’s name in vain. It was 8 p.m. and ABC did nothing to bleep out the words.

I think the uttering of foul language is the height of ignorance. When a person can use an expletive as an adjective, adverb and a verb in the course of uttering one or two sentences, it proves that he or she has nothing rattling around in his brain, and shows a huge tendency toward laziness.

When a commercial network allows the words from the lower regions of the intelligent spectrum to pervade our television viewing, I find it appalling. Foul language is just as pornographic as the picture of a naked adult. There is nothing artsy about it.

I am sick of the foul stuff coming out of TVland and movieland that make their way to our livingroom via cable networks and commercial networks.

Is it too much to ask, or to demand quality? Why must the American public settle for second or third best in an industry that puts billions of dollars in pockets that are already overflowing?

Unfortunately, the courts have ruled that taking the Lord’s name in vain is acceptable because the speech is not about body parts or sexual activity. According to a policy statement issued from the FCC, (Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), reh’g. denied, 414 U.S. 881 (1973); Sable Communications of California, Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115 (1989); 47 C.F.R. § 73. 3999(a). Obscene speech is defined by a three-part test: (1) an average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (2) the material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and (3) the material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.) Located on the world wide web at http://www.fcc.gov/eb/ Orders /2001/ fcc01090.html.

Since this is the interpretation of the law enacted with your help in March of 2001, and since the FCC Commissioners cannot do enforce anything if it is not law, then the enforcer’s hands have been effectively tied.

Therefore, I view this as the open door to more offensive language on the airwaves. Since I have heard more foul words on TV in the past year than I have in the last 10 years, there is only one course of action that will protect my ears: Turn off my TV. That means that those advertisements that advertisers spend billions of dollars on will land against a closed door. That won’t mean much to them, I know, because I’m just one person. But, I wonder what would happen if it became a nationwide protest against filth?

The issues of a General having his mouth muzzled because he was wearing the uniform of the United States and speaking in a church … a judge who cannot have the proven and time-tested moral laws that govern our daily living in the form of the Ten Commandments outside his court are two issues that are prime examples of the violation of the First Amendment which is the very reason we are told we must expose ourselves to the profanity and pornography that spews out of Hollywood!

It is time to do something about it. I am heartily sick of our rights and privileges being taken away because someone like the parent in Marion, Illinois kicked up a stink about some flyers for a revival being handed out at school. Students have First Amendment rights just like everyone else. Why castigate an entire group, when only one person has the problem? This is just one example of the minority ruling the masses. There are many more, and you probably know them better than I do.

Freedom of Speech does not mean assaulting our ears with profanity and our eyes with pornography which is exactly where this country is heading if you don’t do something about it. Our society today is becoming numb to the prevalent evil and if we are not on guard, we’ll find ourselves in a quagmire with no lifeline.

Hubert Hoover said it best when he said,

“Our strength lies in spiritual concepts. It lies in public sensitiveness to evil. Our greatest danger is not from invasion by foreign armies. Our dangers are that we may commit suicide from within by complaisance with evil, or by public tolerance of scandalous behavior.”

–President Herbert Hoover

We urge you to take stock of the situations and please put on the belt of Truth, take up the shield of Faith, arm yourself with the sword and bullet-proof vest of righteousness so that our country won’t commit suicide from within by embracing evil. And please do become intolerant!

Become intolerant of evil practices… intolerant of wickedness towards our families… intolerant of same sex marriages… intolerant of any type of murder including abortion… intolerant of worldly forces that cloak themselves in peace but are truly malevolent and violent against Christian beliefs, morals and ethics, which was the foundation, I would like to remind you, this great country of ours was built upon.

I beg you, please do something about this.

Sincerely,

Gina Burgess

Concerned Citizen

Here is the contact information if you care to write the only people that can actually do something about completely cleaning up the airwaves.

Senator Thad Cochran

United States Senate

Wash., D.C.

20510-2402

The Honorable Trent Lott

487 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

Main: (202) 224-6253

Representative Gene Taylor

2269 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515-2405

phone: 202 225-5772

FCC Chairman

Kevin J. Martin

KJMWEB@fcc.gov