Porn doesn’t belong in neighborhoods

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, April 4, 2004

I would like to respond to the March 30 letter written by Ron Holt (“Adult store: Grown-ups making issue out of nothing”). His adult daughter has chosen to work in a pornography store. But the issue isn’t anyone’s adult child and restricting their choice or his for that matter. The issue is do we want our young children exposed to the pornography business where they live and go to school? Next door to Taboo Video is a family with two children in grade school. Their bedroom window is 10 feet from the parking lot. Also, a neighborhood karate school shares the parking lot and a common wall. Not only is there a pre-school across the street, but on the other side of the residential home is a daycare. And kitty corner from the pornography shop is a church. Common sense should rule here. Which of the above mentioned places don’t belong? Our common sense should be screaming, “What were you thinking? The porn shop is out of place here!”

I agree with Mr. Holt on one point: some well-educated people may frequent Taboo Video. The issue isn’t education. Some well-educated people do horrible things: Ted Bundy was an attorney and a pornography addict! Do we connect his horrendous crimes to his education?

Neighbors are coming together agreeing that our children should not grow up in a community where pornography is considered normal, every day business – next to their bedrooms, across the street from their pre-school or sharing the parking lot with their karate school. There are many locations Taboo Video could have chosen to locate that wouldn’t be in the face of our community’s children. What kind of thinking says pornography is OK in our neighborhood or that it is a “non-issue”?

Everett