Moral Values

If you don't get the daily email diatribes from Mike Heath and the Christian Civic League of Maine, I suggest you sign up for them; they're hilarious. I'm going to try to resist criticizing their rantings too often because they're simply too easy a target, but one item they sent out yesterday caught my eye.

Adelphia Communications Corp. has taken the next step in what William Bennett called "defining deviancy downwards," by announcing that it will offer explicit pornographic materials on its cable service to Southern California. The purpose is to reach Los Angeles, Adelphia's largest market. A spokesperson for the company said that so-called "hard-core" pornography may also be distributed through other Adelphia outlets across the nation[...]
Those in the cable industry have suggested that the recent decision to broadcast explicit pornographic material was based on simple greed. Adelphia is one of the largest cable television providers in Maine.

From ABC News via DKos:

While the [cable] corporations generate millions in profits from providing adult content, their political contributions are often given to those elected, in no small part, because of their stance on "moral values."

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Comcast Cable has given millions in political donations since 1998. The national Republican Party committees are its biggest organizational recipient, with donations totaling $851,000. President Bush is its biggest individual recipient with $109,000 in donations.

Adelphia has given $166,000 to Republican committees, $17,000 to conservative Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., and $12,000 to Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., one of the most conservative members of the Senate.

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