By Martha Crosby, Excerpted from the newsletter of Dallas Association for Decency.
May 1999 – As I conscientiously showed up for jury duty, following our Scriptural admonition to obey civil authority, it never occurred to me I would then be required to see things that would go contrary to Christ’s teaching to fill our minds with those things which are lovely, uplifting, and edifying. In my innocence – innocence that has forever been taken from me – I thought I could look at the film being presented as evidence. I silently prayed for protection and for the men on the jury, that they not have physical responses that would embarrass us all. No need to worry on that account. Nothing in the film was in any way appealing. Only a perverted mind would have a sexual response when viewing that film.
The voire dire process was grueling. I was consistently picked out and ridiculed by the defense attorney for my Christian answers. Several other Christians were disdainfully dismissed from the panel. The judge seemed less than impartial. It was a relief to see that one of the jurors chosen, a man, wore a WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) bracelet. Another juror, a young woman, wore a cross. There were six on the jury.
During the trial, the judge closed his eyes for such extended periods of time, I feared he was dozing. The defense attorney made a great show of casualness and boredom as though to send the message that this matter of pornography is trivial. He abandoned his casualness to presume about what Texans would or wouldn’t tolerate. The prosecuting attorneys seemed sincere, but terribly outclassed….
The deliberations were worse than a nightmare. The WWJD-clad man said he had pornography, albeit locked in a cabinet where children could not access it. The young woman wearing a cross said she routinely visits pornography stores, renting videos frequently. The jury was asked if the film would be offensive to most Texans. I was the only juror who said, “Yes, most of us would be offended.” My answer infuriating a schoolteacher on the jury to the point of yelling and wagging her finger in my face. This woman allowed as how she would hide a pornographic film if she rented one in a grocery store, stuffing it under other items, so no one would see it. I suggested such behavior would be engendered by her understanding that the society does not approve of pornography and does, in fact, find it offensive. She said no, she would just do it in case she came across a bigot like me.
Ultimately, I had to vote that the film would not be offensive, because I had promised under oath to cast my vote based solely on the evidence presented. The defense did a thorough job of pointing to ads for porn shops in yellow pages, the Dallas Morning News and access to porn on public library computers, thus making the point that pornography is available everywhere. They extrapolated from this that no one is offended if it is so prevalent. The prosecution did not demonstrate that such material offends our society.
There were some bright spots. The man wearing the WWJD bracelet told me he was sorry I had to see [the film]. The policemen who came as witnesses were a mixed blessing. The prosecutor would have been better off not calling one of the officers to the stand, but two of the officers were wonderfully effective….
By that pornographer being acquitted, we Christians were indicted. We have provided no presentable evidence that we are offended by pornography. If theaters emptied during the nude scenes in the movie Titanic we would have made a strong witness, one that could even be used in court. But we didn’t. The darkness is winning because we refuse to shine our light. 
Editor’s note
Legally, the issue of pornography can be confusing. Pornography broadly describes all sexually oriented material primarily intended to arouse the reader, viewer or listener. Examples could include magazines, movies, phone sex, radio broadcasts, Internet images, etc.
Softcore pornography refers to images such as those in Playboy and Penthouse which feature nudity. This category also includes topless dancing. Softcore images are protected by the First Amendment, classified as “erotic speech.”
However, the First Amendment’s protection is not unlimited. The local governing authority can enact time, place and manner restrictions on erotic speech for good cause. For example, a common ordinance adopted by more and more communities requires topless clubs and other sexually oriented businesses (SOB) to be at least 1000 feet away from a church, school, home, park or other SOB.
Hardcore pornography or obscenity is more graphic, violent and lewd in nature. It is not protected by the First Amendment. Local governments can distinguish for their own communities between softcore and hardcore pornography. These “community standards” are used by the district attorney in the prosecution of obscenity violations.
In the article above, a Dallas County woman was summoned to serve on a jury that considered whether a particular video was obscene. If the jury found the video to be obscene, the law would allow them to penalize the video store that sold or rented this video in violation of the community standards. This is one woman’s story of the struggle to promote decency in an apathetic culture.
