FRC Calls on the Department of Justice to Protect Children from Indecent Broadcast Television

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Mar 31, 2011, 12:17 ET

WASHINGTON, March 31, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Family Research Council is strongly urging the U.S. Department of Justice to immediately seek U.S. Supreme Court review of a telecommunications decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. That July 2010 opinion struck down the FCC's indecency regulations holding they were unconstitutionally vague.

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This week an FCC source told Broadcasting & Cable, a television industry trade magazine, that the government had exhausted its ability to seek filing deadline extensions with the Supreme Court. Fox v. FCC involved indecent and profane remarks made during broadcast television programs. To our alarm, the source also noted that the acting Solicitor General of the United States still has not decided whether to appeal the Second Circuit decision.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins made the following comments surrounding these recent revelations:

"Family Research Council joins with pro-family organizations and millions of American moms and dads in urging the Obama Justice Department to work actively to protect children from unrestricted access to indecent and profane material on commercial TV. The airwaves are licensed by the FCC because they are seen as a scarce public resource, just as public lands are leased to mining companies. If the FCC does not protect the public it has been entrusted to safeguard, it does violence to its very purpose for being.

"If the Second Circuit's decision is allowed to stand, the floodgates will be open for all manner of indecent and profane content on broadcast television. This is unacceptable to all Americans who assume at least some measure of moral restraint on public airwaves and most especially to American parents, including the thousands represented by Family Research Council, who expect that the public airwaves will not contain such material.

"Failure to seek Supreme Court review would be reminiscent of the Department's recent decision to refuse to support the Defense of Marriage Act, as well as a number of other issues. This Administration increasingly seems to think that enforcing public law is merely a political choice, a gigantic leap away from the Constitution's demands and the public's rightful expectations," concluded Perkins.

To view the amicus brief filed by Family Research Council in this case, click here: http://www.frc.org/legalbrief/fox-television-stations-inc-et-al-v-federal-communications-commission

SOURCE Family Research Council