April 09, 2008

Soft Core Porn Hits Kids at Wal-Mart

How many times have you walked through a store checkout and been offended by the magazine covers featuring nudity and vulgarity. Who are the ones marketing and financing the "vulgarians," the ones attempting to appeal to the prurient interests of people?

It's with this question that Vic Eliason introduced Angie Smethers of North Carolina and Bob Peters of Morality in Media. Angie began by sharing her testimony concerning an inappropriate magazine that was displayed at Wal-Mart.

About two weeks ago she went to Wal-Mart with her family. One of her children discovered a Sports Illustrated magazine with a vulgar cover. Angie not only went to store management, she also went to Focus on the Family, the American Family Association, and other media in order to obtain results.

This experience led Nancy to put a petition together that details her plan to ask Wal-Mart to step up for children and set an example. The petition is available at http://www.ipetitions.com.

Bob Peters of Morality in Media explained that Wal-Mart may have signed a contract that they will display Sports Illustrated unless the magazine violates any laws. He noted that whether or not this magazine's cover is pornographic is being communicated from a legal perspective but not from a common sense perspective.

Action Points

To express your concerns about inappropriate magazine covers on display at Wal-Mart:

Wal-Mart
702 Southwest 8th St.
Bentonville, Arkansas 72716
479-273-4000
1-800-Wal-Mart

To sign the petition to Wal-Mart:
http://www.ipetitions.com.

To ask the New York Times to cover this story contact:
New York Times
212-302-9817
212-556-1234