September 16, 2007
The Ohio Taliban rides again
There is no zealot like a convert; and there is no crusader like an ex-sinner.
Or in this case, an ex-porn addict….
You may have followed my previous two dispatches about the sorry spectacle of Ohio Senate Bill 16----another attempt by the Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values (CCV) to legislate morality in the Buckeye State. The CCV is led by Phil Burress, a man who seems intent on inflicting his troubled past on the rest of Ohio.
By his own admission, Phil Burress is a former porn addict. His addiction was apparently the source of considerable personal hardships; but he ultimately went clean. (I don’t know what sort of 12-step program Burress may have used---and frankly, I would rather not be privy to the details.) In a rush of post-addiction zeal, Burress determined that he would dedicate his life (or at least the majority of his free time) to saving the rest of Ohio from his addiction.
The result has been a series of public initiatives that waste legislative time and taxpayer dollars---but fail to address the problems that real conservatives in Ohio should be concerned about: rampant violent crime in Cincinnati and Cleveland, and sky-high tax rates that are driving investment out of the Buckeye State.
Burress has squandered the political capital of Ohio’s conservatives by associating us with religious extremism and finger-wagging prudishness. At a time when America is waging a war against the intolerance of Islamic extremism, Burress seems intent on bringing his own version of Taliban rule to Ohio.
Since Burress has been involved with the Citizens for Community Values, the organization has forced expensive public legal battles over art exhibits, and led boycotts against hotel chains that offer pay-per-view adult movies. The CCV has kvetched endlessly over billboards. (The road to perdition may, in fact, be lined with 48 x 14-foot photo montages of Hooter’s waitresses.)
And now we have the CCV’s magnum opus, Ohio Senate Bill 16. The law criminalizes a various forms of trivial contact between strip bar dancers and patrons. Silly? Yes, but there is more: The law will effectively force police departments to add strip bars to their beats. (There may be an upside for individual patrolman, though---monitoring dancers in the Kitty Kat Club sure beats the heck out of patrolling the mean streets of downtown Cincinnati.)
Perhaps the CCV is attempting to save us from our own peccadilloes. Ohio’s 11.4 million people could be a teeming mass of potential porn addicts. But somehow I doubt that. Therefore, I would much rather see lawmakers and citizens’ groups focus on curbing violent crime in Cincinnati. (Most of don’t feel safe going downtown anymore.)
Perhaps an open appeal to Phil Burress is in order: I am glad that you found the cure to pornography addiction. Now that you have vanquished your personal demons, go write a book, form a national self-help group, or do the Oprah / Dr. Phil / Montel Williams circuit. But please quit assuming that your problem is our problem. The rest of us (conservatives included) have a very different set of priorities.
