The Campaign to Cleanse American Culture (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2006)
By Fred Lane
“In a nation where freedom of speech is one
of the first principles secured by the Bill of
Rights, how is it that any agency of the federal
government has the authority to punish
broadcasters for what they put on the air?”
Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction”
during the halftime show at the 2004 Super
Bowl sparked a resurgence in the national
debate about government regulation of
speech in general, and broadcast media in
particular, argues First Amendment specialist
Fred Lane in this spirited account of the
long-running battle over “decency” in
American culture.
Lane traces the decency debate from its
roots in the English Reformation through
the rise of the Moral Majority and the
Christian Coalition to the recent activism of
the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) in combating perceived indecency.
From moveable type to the internet,
every new communication medium has
triggered concerns about changing standards
of decency, writes Lane. But he sees
the current “decency wars” spearheaded
by politically influential religious conservatives
as symptomatic of an unprecedented
threat to American pluralism. A government
committed to true decency, Lane
argues, would focus less on attempting to
regulate sexual morality, and more on
treating its citizens with basic human compassion,
and being a moral participant in
the world community.
—Jane Whitehead
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