By Fred Jackson and Jody Brown
June 19, 2001

(AgapePress) - The fallout from a pro-family group's accusation of pornography on a major Internet portal continues to influence the world of e-commerce.

In early April, the American Family Association -- a pro-family organization which has brought to light the detrimental effects of pornography on families almost since the group's inception in 1977 -- urged Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate Internet giant Yahoo! for federal child pornography and obscenity violations. Within days, an organized group of Yahoo! porn club members -- apparently in reaction to Yahoo!'s decision to close access to many of its porn clubs -- began an e-mail campaign against KingdomBuy.com, an Internet-based Christian shopping mall that allows consumers to direct a percentage of their purchases to local churches and Christian ministries. The porn club campaign targeted the shopping mall because of its affiliation with the American Family Association.

Within days after the start of the Yahoo! users' e-mail campaign, retailers such as Nordstrom and J.C. Penney began dropping their association with KingdomBuy.com. Neither Nordstrom nor J.C. Penney cite the campaign by the porn club members as their reason for leaving KingdomBuy.com, instead saying the decision was for "business reasons." Some retailers -- most notably, WalMart.com, Avon, and FTD.com -- also left the program, but returned shortly thereafter. Now, Enterprise Rent-A-Car has become the latest company to drop its affiliation with KingdomBuy.com.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car
WorldNetDaily quotes the director of KingdomBuy.com, Gary Sutton, who says Enterprise was concerned about KingdomBuy.com's affiliation with AbidingTruth.com, a group that opposes the cultural normalization of the homosexual lifestyle. In an e-mail to KingdomBuy.com yesterday, Travis Wools of Enterprise accused the shopping mall of promoting "negative and exclusionary ideas and beliefs toward particular group(s)."

Wools told WorldNetDaily that the e-mail was intended for another organization and had been sent to Sutton by mistake. Sutton disputes that claim, saying that during a telephone conversation Wools indicated a customer had complained about the shopping mall's affiliation with AbidingTruth.com. Sutton says Wools accused AbidingTruth.com of being an "anti-gay" website.

"Using Mr. Wools' definition of anti-gay would mean that most Christian organizations are anti-gay, since most believe that the homosexual lifestyle is a violation of Biblical guidelines for human behavior," Sutton told WorldNetDaily. Nevertheless, Sutton says AbidingTruth.com -- while registered with KingdomBuy.com -- is not an affiliate and has not received any money from his organization.

AbidingTruth.com is the website for Abiding Truth Ministries, based in Citrus Heights, California. The ministry operates the Pro-Family Law Center, the nation's only legal entity devoted exclusively to opposing the homosexual movement. Scott Lively, an attorney and president of Abiding Truth Ministries, began serving as the California state director for AFA in early April.

A Magnet for Pedophiles?
Meanwhile, it appears Yahoo! has not cleaned up its act in the last two months, so the American Family Association is bringing it to the attention of Attorney General John Ashcroft -- again. Patrick Trueman is director of governmental affairs for AFA. He also was chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section in the Department of Justice's Criminal Division under the first President Bush.

Trueman penned the April letter to Ashcroft, urging him to investigate Yahoo! for federal child pornography and obscenity violations. That was followed by meeting with the Attorney General on May 10 at which those in attendance -- which included Trueman, U.S. Congressmen Steve Largent of Oklahoma and Chris Smith of New Jersey, and AFA president Donald Wildmon -- sought a commitment from the DOJ to track down and prosecute businesses and individuals involved in distributing obscene material and child porn.

Now Trueman says in a statement that although it seems Yahoo! has removed many sites with potentially illegal material and discontinued sales of hard-core porn videos, "the company is still a magnet for pedophiles and those seeking all varieties of hard-core pornography." He says a search of Yahoo!'s current clubs and GeoCities sites indicates a "seemingly endless number" of the sites contain porn that depict children in a variety of sexual poses and involved in sex acts.

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