By M.H. Cavanaugh
Christian Action League
October 3, 2014
WASHINGTON – Earlier in May of this year there was a flap in Washington over Environmental Protection Agency Employees who were caught watching pornography and falsifying federal documents.
During a hearing before the House Oversight Committee, California Republican Darrell Issa, drilled the EPA officials with questions they struggled to answer. According to the Daily Caller, Issa asked the agency’s second in command, “How much pornography would it take for an EPA employee to lose his job?” Issa was concerned about a report that sited an EPA employee for viewing pornography at work. “The employee had 7,000 porn files on his computer and had been watching porn for two to six hours per day since 2010.” Yet the employee had not been fired.
“This individual spent four consecutive hours on a site called ‘sadism is beautiful,’” Issa pressed the EPA employees, reported the Daily Caller. ‘You are running an organization from which no one can get fired.”
The report availed to the Committee was provided by the Office of Inspector General, which had been investigating fraudulent activity taking place in the EPA.
In mid-September, North Carolina Congressman, Mark Meadows (R), felt compelled to act and introduced legislation that would warrant federal agencies block pornographic material on government issued computers and mobile devices.
Meadows said in a press release, “It’s appalling that it requires an act of Congress to ensure that federal agencies block access to these sites at work. Allowing federal employees to access pornographic materials in the workplace creates an unprofessional and potentially hostile work environment for fellow workers. This bill is a common sense measure that ensures that federal workers aren’t viewing pornographic materials on the taxpayer’s dime.”
“If you should ever wonder how mainstream porn has gone,” said Dr. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League, “just look at this situation.” “Porn is so pervasive we need a bill in Congress to prevent government employees from viewing it at the tax-payer’s expense.”
Dr. Creech said he appreciated Congressman Meadow’s commitment to right a wrong – a moral wrong.
Newsmax also reported that just a few days before Meadows introduced his measure Environment and Energy Daily noted that the employee who had been viewing porn for long hours while on the job had yet to be terminated and was still on the EPA payroll.
“I suspect that Congressman Meadows’ legislation will likely get some push-back from those who will site the First Amendment, arguing their obscene materials are a form of free speech,” said Dr. Creech. “But I thank God that Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Congressman and a fine Christian statesman, has the courage to fight the good fight. Today there are many kinds of democratically enacted prohibitions of speech. You can’t libel, slander, perjure, false advertise, excite to violence or use speech that might create ‘a clear and present danger’. Cigarette commercials have been censored from television. Surely we can see the wisdom of blocking the nefarious activity of stirring prurient lusts at the expense of the American people. Surely we haven’t lost all reason,” he concluded.