Mullah Goebel and the battle against New Albany DVD

A letter to the editor entitled “Fight against pornography is not over” appears in Sunday’s New Albany Tribune.

The author is Tony Goebel, pastor at the New Beginnings Community Church.

Pastor Goebel begins by presenting his credentials as a “pastor and a lawyer,” and provides his game plan for the “battle against pornography creeping into our community through New Albany DVD.”

In Pastor Goebel’s view, “Round One ended with Federal Judge Sarah Evans Barker refusing to dismiss a federal lawsuit filed by NA DVD alleging the city of New Albany had violated its (NA DVD’s) Constitutionally protected ‘free speech’ rights … (because) Judge Barker held that the actions taken by the city to stop this adult business from opening ‘are susceptible to an inference of bad faith prosecution’ … but her denial is not the end of the story.”

For what he perceives as Round Two, Pastor Goebel offers “free legal advice” with respect to the city’s appeals options.

As for Round Three, he belatedly comes to the obviously grudging admission that, “the sale and distribution of ‘pornography’ as defined by the courts is protected ‘speech,’ while the sale and distribution of ‘obscenity’ is not.” Pastor Goebel recommends enforcing current obscenity laws and passing new ones.

Round Four constitutes the inevitable advertisement for Pastor Goebel’s primary business, saving souls: “The only way to defeat the predominance of sin is by sharing the saving message of the gospel of Jesus Christ with the lost … the more people who are converted to Christ, the less demand and profit there will be for any adult business.”

And, just as inevitably, who better to unite the “churches and Christians of New Albany” than Pastor Goebel himself? Accordingly, on February 17, New Beginnings will be hosting a meeting to organize the “knockout punch to pornography.”

Above all else, Pastor Goebel’s letter serves to remind us that in the struggle to create a revolution from nothing and to move society forward, those among us who embrace superstition and advocate regression stand ever ready to assist us in making the journey backwards in time to the primordial ooze.

Granted, it is quite likely that there’s not a single person currently living in New Albany who, if asked, would publicly profess a predilection for pornography.

However, and far more importantly, there are many hereabouts who understand that Pastor Goebel’s intentionally slippery rhetorical slope poses grave problems for the maintenance of free speech, free expression, and free choice when it comes to matters of conscience like religious observance.

Pastor Goebel begins with the word “pornography,” shifts to “obscenity” in mid-argument, then concludes with “sin.” Even Tribune readers can see that these three words do not mean the same thing, and as a lawyer trained in the importance of semantics, Pastor Goebel knows it, too.

Cleverly, Pastor Goebel does not address the legal concept of community standards with respect to obscenity, preferring instead to sidestep this most crucial (and complicated) consideration by introducing the concept of sin, in effect pole-vaulting over any legal and secular obstacles to the Inquisition to nestle safely in the realm of theology.

And guess who is ready, willing and able to provide the suggested view according to his particular version of Christian theology?

Theology is not the realm addressed by the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, but this simple fact will never suffice to convince the theocrats among us.

Those who do not wish to reside in a place where Mullah Goebel defines concepts like obscenity for you, rather than in a place where you have the freedom to consider these concepts on your own, must remain vigilant, because it would be tragically mistaken to presume that Adult DVD is the sole target of any such Crusade.

As for the involvement if tax-exempt religious groups in political matters, we’ll just have to leave that one for another time.