That single event triggered a record 1.4 million indecency complaints to the Federal Communications Commission and caused the agency to levy a record $7.9 million in fines.

It also led to the Bush appointment of Kevin Martin as the new FCC chairman. Martin has been an outspoken supporter of increased indecency fines and a general crackdown on network and even cable broadcasting.

 

It looked for a while like American television, radio and all broadcast service was about to fall under the wicked net of right-wing ultra-conservative Christian censorship.

But then something happened. The consequences of what happened can probably be best exemplified in the case of shock-jock Howard Stern.

 

Stern is a highly popular radio and television commentator who has gained his reputation on gross sexual exploitation of women. He talks graphically about sex and has women disrobe in front of the cameras. FCC pressures drove Stern into the FCC-free world of satellite radio. When he left, he took millions of advertising dollars with him.

And there is reality. What the zealous Christians were doing was suddenly costing people in high places a lot of money.

 

What we aren’t freely told is that a lot of very big companies and media networks are secretly involved in the production and distribution of pornography. They are doing it because that is where the money is.

And money is the true god of the human race. Its power is greater than that of the Christian Jesus. So guess what has happened.

The FCC crackdown has come to a screeching halt. In spite of receiving more than 189,000 indecency complaints against radio and television programming between January 1 and Oct. 1, the FCC has not issued a single fine.

All seems to be silently on hold in the offices of the FCC. And folks are holding their breath.

 
Perhaps the world of fine art and free expression is not going to be affected by the hard-line Christian nutbags as severely as we once thought.