LOS ANGELES — In what the pro-censorship group described as a major announcement, Morality In Media’s Executive Director, Dawn Hawkins, revealed its recent rebrand.
“We are excited to share that we are changing our name from Morality In Media and PornHarms to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation,” Hawkins stated, noting that the transition will occur sometime during 2015.
“We were founded in 1962 to defend dignity and oppose exploitation [and] our mission will not change,” Hawkins added. “We believe that the new name, National Center on Sexual Exploitation, better describes our scope and mission to expose the seamless connection between all forms of sexual exploitation.”
Whatever the group’s motivation, the maneuver comes at a time when the civilized world is sharply focused on supporting freedom of expression — following the terrorist massacre at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, the weekly magazine that printed a cartoon that cost the lives of a dozen staff members who were assassinated because a group of religious extremists did not approve of their sense of humor — a cartoon which continues to cause riots among the intolerant and the burning of churches in Muslim nations across Africa and the Middle East.
Perhaps trying to distance itself from its perception as a group of religious fanatics and book burners, MIM adopted the quasi-official and pseudo-scientific sounding moniker of “National Center on Sexual Exploitation” earlier this month, making the announcement on Martin Luther King Day.
“As we celebrate Martin Luther King’s legacy, let us remember his wisdom and reasons for defending the dignity of everyone,” Hawkins stated. “There is much we can learn from his fight that would help in this one.”
“Like him, and many others who fight to curb exploitation, we are fighting to change the very mindset and an entire way of seeing the world and we are trying to replace it with another way of seeing the world!” Hawkins added. “We all deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. We must replace the notion that persists today, that using people and treating them as objects is fundamentally alright, with the mindset that sexual exploitation in any form is not acceptable.”
While the legitimate adult entertainment industry, which opposes sexual exploitation and trafficking, applauds this admirable goal, the group’s shift may be in name only — a new coat of paint on a tired old buggy that is broken down on the side of the information superhighway as the modern world passes it by in the fast lane. Only time and tolerance will tell.