Porn A Growing Problem in Military (Family.org Article)

Taken from Family.org:

Porn A Growing Problem in Military
from staff reports

Chaplains report an increasing number of confessions from servicemen and women about addiction.

Pornography is causing a problem in the military, with chaplains overseas and at home reporting that an increasing number of servicemen and women are confessing to their pastors about porn's hold on them.

Father Mark Reilly, a Marine Corps chaplain, recently returned from a tour in Iraq where he heard continual confessions from soldiers addicted to porn.

"People will mail them stuff," he told Family News in Focus, "and the Internet is the biggest source of the spread of this addiction I would say."

The combination of war stress and being away from loved ones is a bad mixture for a porn addiction, he explained, adding that curbing the problem starts at home.

"I have trouble with the fact that you can step into the PX and buy pornography," Reilly said. "I don't think our Post Exchanges need to be in the business of peddling porn."

Congress enacted the Military Honor and Decency Act in 1996 to ban the sale of sexually explicit magazines and videos at military stores. Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, said the law isn't being enforced.

"When a military base makes available pornography, or condones it, or does nothing about it when it comes in through other areas," she said, "it sort of implies that it's OK with the leadership."

Donnelly said she wants porn in the PX revisited, and it should start with admitting there's a problem.

"Congress is going to have to take a look at this. Certainly the Pentagon is going to have to enforce those rules," she said. "It's a matter of good order and discipline and not just a matter of religion or free speech. It's a matter that the military itself needs to be concerned about."

In the meantime, the only help soldiers are finding is in the confessional and from their chaplains.