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Kansas City Office In the News
As TIME magazine recently reported, the National Coalition’s Kansas City office has successfully restricted the expansion and prominence of sexually oriented businesses (SOBs) in the state for years. Most recently, our staff has challenged the placement of large, adult-oriented billboards on high-traffic freeways advertising the porn shop Lion’s Den. Now, with a new attorney general in place, it appears the job has become more difficult—but we are not letting up the pressure. “The sex industry’s strategy is to throw millions of dollars into lawsuits challenging reasonable restrictions, which often intimidates small towns along interstate highways,” said Phillip Cosby, executive director of the National Coalition’s Kansas City office who has been leading the charge since 2003. “Now the Kansas top cop, Attorney General Steve Six, has flinched at the roar of the Lion's Den interstate porn chain.” Attorney General Six, rather than defending the 2006 Kansas law that protects children, families, and communities by restricting highway billboards for sexually oriented businesses, has decided that defense of the law is not a wise investment of Kansas tax dollars. “This case can and will be won with the right argument,” added Cosby, an argument he believes must include the constitutional basis for zoning restrictions on sexually oriented businesses. This includes the proven adverse secondary effects of SOBs such as increased crime, increased STDs, property devaluation, increased drug trafficking, and general blight. The National Coalition believes it is time for pornography outlets and their negative effects on society to be more closely scrutinized—and not permitted free reign to thrust their wares in the faces of the citizenry. “It’s disheartening that Attorney General Six did not examine the 1,500 pages of evidence regarding the negative secondary effects of SOBs I provided to the Kansas legislators during the committee hearing,” Cosby adds. While Attorney General Six’s decision not to act is a disappointment, we will continue to move our work forward—protecting the vulnerable from a sexualized culture and restoring those broken by the devastating effects of pornography. For more information, please visit the following article links: TIME Magazine Associated Press OneNewsNow |
