By Rusty Pugh and Jody Brown

(AgapePress) - On the heels of a demonstration last week, a coalition of pro-family groups is about to launch a boycott of the nation's third-largest video rental chain.

Representatives of the American Family Association, the Christian Coalition of Alabama, and others held a demonstration at the headquarters of Movie Gallery last week to bring attention to the company's policy of offering hard-core pornographic movies in many of its stores. AFA Special Projects Director Randy Sharp says it is time for concerned citizens everywhere to stop shopping at Movie Gallery--even if pornography is technically legal in their community.

"It's a matter of what's right in the eyes of the community, in the people, and our nation as a whole," Sharp says. "We're on a moral downslide...we've seen that for the last eight years, and Movie Gallery has joined in that downslide. In other words, they're adding mud to the slide and [saying] let's all just go down together."

"It's a matter of principle over profit," he says, "and it's a matter of doing what's right in our heads and our heart rather than what's right in our back pocket."

Sharp says Movie Gallery officials continue to justify their involvement in pornography by saying they are simply supplying a popular product. In fact, in a statement sent via e-mail by Movie Gallery to those asking the company to remove the pornography, the company says it is not offering material that is not already available to communities through cable TV networks, the Internet, and its competitors. Nowhere in the statement does Movie Gallery refer to the material as pornography, choosing instead to call it an "adult product" and "adult-oriented" movies.

Movie Gallery, in reaction to the pending boycott, claims AFA failed to live up to its end of the bargain during months of negotiations, calling AFA's actions "regrettable in the face of Movie Gallery's good faith commitment." The video rental chain says it intended to remove "adult material" from its shelves in a way that would minimize the economic impact on each affected location. Movie Gallery said it wanted to "keep stores open, people employed, and continue to support the tax base of each community."

Sharp says Movie Gallery has made it clear they have no intention or removing the pornography.

"[It is] clearly understood that the bottom line is American Family Association doesn't need to hear from Movie Gallery until they come and say, 'You know, we see that the best thing for our company to do is to close down these back rooms and stop bringing hard-core pornography,' " he says.

"Until we hear them calling to say that, we don't need to hear from them--because the only other thing they have to give us are excuses and reasonings, and we don't want that."

Sharp says Movie Gallery is not concerned with the effect of pornography on families and children--only with profits.

"Movie Gallery is in it for the money," Sharp says. "If they really cared about communities and community standards, they would pull it out. For [them] to say, 'Well, that's what the people want, so we make it available to them'...that's drug-dealer logic."

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