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BJCPA General Counsel Co-Authors Book With Defender of Child Pornography The BJCPA’s former General Counsel, Oliver (Buzz) Thomas, co-authored a 1994 book with Barry Lynn, former legislative counsel for the ACLU. The book, entitled The Right to Religious Liberty: The Basic ACLU Guide to Religious Rights, was published as part of the ACLU’s citizens’ rights series. Lynn left the ACLU in 1991 and became Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State in 1992, an organization where numerous BJCPA staff and board members have served in high- ranking positions since the organization’s founding in 1947. Since the early 1980’s, current BJCPA Executive Director, James Dunn, has served as a trustee. In a televised debate on William F. Buckley’s Firing Line, which aired in St. Louis on September 26, 1993, Congressman Henry Hyde questioned Barry Lynn about his position on child pornography. Opening his line of questions with the statement: "I know you addressed an adult movie convention in Las Vegas," the questions and answers went as follows: Henry Hyde: Is there a constitutional right to produce or to view child pornography?" Barry Lynn: "The American Civil Liberties Union thinks there is." Henry Hyde: "What do you think?" Barry Lynn: "What do I think? I happen to have worked for the American Civil Liberties Union and I agreed with that position. I don’t understand though... what this has to do with church/state matters." Henry Hyde: "I think we all just wanted to know if you think there’s a right to view and produce child pornography." Barry Lynn: "My personal opinion about child pornography viewing I don’t think is terribly relevant. That was a position of the ACLU. I worked for the American Civil Liberties Union." Henry Hyde: "As a leader in the field of civil rights and as a clergyman, I just wanted to know." (For more information see "defense" section VIII) BJCPA Supports "Whole-Hearted, Full-Throated Freedom" How could an ordained United Church of Christ minister believe that the U.S. Constitution was intended to protect child pornography? In the same televised debate mentioned above, the Rev. Barry Lynn stated: "The only way true morality can exist in a society is if there are choices - if we can choose to do the good and/or to do the evil... I’d like government to stay out of the business of trying to constrain the options and allow genuine moral choice to prevail." Reflecting the same attitude in different terms, BJCPA Executive Director, James Dunn, writes: "the Baptist Joint Committee is regularly on the side of ‘whole-hearted, full-throated freedom.’" (Report from the Capital, May 1992, p. 15) He argues that true "freedom of conscience" requires "freedom of expression" and that the two are "as a piece of whole cloth, a seamless garment." (Report from the Capital, Feb. 1993, p. 15) (For more information see "defense" section VIII) Americans United Executive Director - History of Defending Child Pornography Speaking of the time he served on the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Dr. James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, wrote in regard to Barry Lynn’s 1985 testimony before the commission in favor of protecting child pornography: "I will never forget a particular set of photographs shown to us at our first hearing in Washington, D.C. It focused on a cute, nine-year-old boy who had fallen into he hands of a molester. In the first picture, the blond lad was fully clothed and smiling at the camera. But in the second, he was nude, dead and had a butcher knife protruding from his chest. I served for 14 years as a member of a medical school faculty and thought I had seen it all. But my knees buckled and tears came to my eyes as these and hundreds of other photographs of children were presented...showing pitiful boys and girls with their rectums enlarged to accommodate adult males and their vaginas penetrated with pencils, toothbrushes and guns. Perhaps the reader can understand my anger and disbelief when a representative for the American Civil Liberties Union testified a few minutes later. He advocated the free exchange of pornography, all pornography, in the marketplace. He was promptly asked about material depicting children such as those we had seen. This man said, with a straight face, that it is the ACLU’s position that child pornography should not be produced, but once it is in existence, there should be no restriction on its sale and distribution." (Dr. James Dobson, Final Report of the Commission on Pornography, pp. 505-506) (emphasis ours) (For more information see "defense" section VIII)
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