Pornography may be the fare at Lexington’s city-owned theater
Major issue of policy to be decided by City Council in August
From, The Kentucky Citizen Digest, January/February, 2001.

Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council Member At-Large, Scott Crosbie’s fight to prohibit the showing of pornography at the Kentucky Theater is now entering its second round of controversy.  On November 12, Crosbie led a protest in front of the Theater demanding that a porn movie, Disco Dolls in Hot Skin not be shown. The film starred the late-John Holmes, a well-know porn star who had appeared in over 2200 X-rated movies and eventually died from AIDS.

At that time, Mayor Pam Miller declined Crosbie’s request and allowed the film to be shown.  The assistant county attorney, however, ordered police to the facility, where they ultimately seized the film, made several criminal citations against the theater management group and found some of the teen patrons engaged in sex acts.

Surprisingly, city attorneys did not even attend the court hearing concerning the film’s seizure, forcing the District Court to release the film back to one of the management group’s partners, Analy Scorsone, sister of State Senator Ernesto Scorsone.  Some believe this was a calculated ploy by the city so that no court proceedings would transpire.

The following Sunday evening, Scorsone and theater manager, Fred Mills, showed the film to a packed house of UK students, many of them teens.  On Monday morning, the film was expeditiously shipped out of state, thus preventing it from being subpoenaed in the anticipated obscenity trial of Mills, who had previous experience managing X-rated theaters.

The next Council meeting was bizarre — several council members attacked Crosbie for attempting to “legislate morality” and one councilman who challenged Crosbie then publicly admitted that he enjoys watching pornography and owns several X-rated films. At issue were two key principles:  “Should city property should be used for X-rated entertainment?” and “Should the city profit from sexually explicit entertainment?”  The Council took no action, voting 11 to 4 not even to review the theater contract.  Only Crosbie and council members Sandy Shafer, Fred Brown and Al Mitchell voted for the measure.

Clearly, it is well established that nothing is legally obscene until a judge or jury determines it so.  However, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision on pornography stated that patently offensive representations of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals are considered “plain examples” of obscene content.

Did Disco Dolls cross the line? The advertisement for Disco Dolls in the University of Kentucky newspaper encouraged students to “bring a towel” since the actors “will COME out at you” in 3-Dimensual color.  Most regard the terminology as a clear suggestion that masturbation might be appropriate.

Not surprisingly, when the police were sent to the showing, arrests were made in both the men’s and women’s bathroom for teenagers engaging in mutual masturbation, oral sex and related homosexual activities.  These problems were further compounded by the number of intoxicated patrons who had purchased alcoholic beverages at the facility (The Kentucky is the only Lexington theater allowed to serve alcoholic beverages).

What lessons did the Theater management group learn from this incident?   Within less than a week, a local television station (WLEX-TV) sent three fifteen-year-old girls to see if they could purchase tickets to a restricted, adult-oriented movie.  All three girls were shown purchasing tickets by the undercover camera.

The issue is now being revisited since the contract with the Theater management group has expired.  After a series of open records requests by Crosbie regarding the financial aspects of the agreement, Fred Mills issued a statement that the theater would not show any more “obscene” movies in the future.   Miller has defended the Theater’s right to show pornography and is quoted as saying the entire matter was “overblown.”

Nevertheless, through the help of Brown (Fred), Shafer and Mitchell, Crosbie is determined to address this concern.  “X-rated films are not art,” says Crosbie. “They are simply a vehicle for almost unlimited sexual exploitation, sexism, and the rape and molestation of thousands of children.”

The next Council debate will be in August.  At the last Council Services Committee meeting (the committee through which contract changes will come), city attorneys defended the Mayor and the Theater management group stating that it would be unconstitutional to deny them the right to show pornography.  When pressed by Crosbie, the law department suggested that “occasional live nude dancing” would also be allowed under the current contract.   After that admission, several council members quietly left the meeting, presumably to avoid another potentially damaging vote just before their upcoming Council elections this fall.

Crosbie can’t understand the Council’s unwillingness to act, “With all of the positive programming available, why can’t we agree that showing obscene, pornographic material at a government-owned and subsidized theater defies commonly-accepted standards of public decency?”
 
 

Key Family Foundation Contacts: Kent Ostrander, Executive Director Martin Cothran, Senior Associate Policy Analyst