If the religious right gets its way, the US military may soon be made up of sexually frustrated soldiers that turn to each other for "relief".  Homophobic wacko  "Reverend"  Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association has started a letter-writing protest against the Pentagon for "ignoring" Congress' wishes and allowing the sales of Playboy & Penthouse to our fighting men.

 In 1996 The Republican Congress passed the Military Honor and Decency Act of 1996 which bars stores on military bases from selling "sexually explicit material." The material (both film & print) in question was described as having ".... dominant theme of which depicts or describes nudity" or sexual activities "in a lascivious way." A challenge to the law in 2002 was unsuccessful, so the Pentagon took matters into its own hands. In August, the Pentagon's Resale Activities Board of Review concluded that Penthouse and Playboy could be sold to the soldiers because "based solely on the totality of each magazine's content, they were not sexually explicit".

 Can you imagine the cheers heard from all those 18-25 horned up fighting men?  Can you imagine all the vaseline and kleenex sold at the PX? Obviously the military realized they had a problem on their hands--they were asking young virile men whose lives were on the line day after day to sacrifice their rights as US citizens. Or as the ACLU put it " the law effectively censors what troops get to read in remote areas or combat zones. We're asking these people to risk their lives to defend our Constitution's principles … and they're being denied their own First Amendment rights to choose what they read."