One church in Newport put up a billboard that reads, “Porn Hurts Everyone.” Mark Landry, a clerk at Spice Adult Video, said of the billboard, “The first thing people see when they drive past here is a sign that says ‘porn.’ They’d drive right by the word ‘spice.’ I kind of feel bad for them [the protestors]. It’s doing the opposite of what they intended.”
Roger Minnicks, owner of Imagine That, an adult store located a few miles up the coast in Lincoln City, said it’s a case of any publicity being good publicity. Every time a newspaper writes a story about the protests, he says, business improves.
The church protests also have been inspiring counter protests in support of the stores. A group of teenagers has organized outside of Wayne’s Adult World with signs that say, “We love porn.” Others have supported the stores in more spontaneous ways such as mooning the anti-porn protestors or throwing cups of soda at them while driving past.
To add insult to injury, lawmakers and voters have sided with the adult stores.
One pastor handed in a petition to the Newport City Council late last year and was told the city has no ordinance regulating adult businesses and no plans to draft one.
Getting Oregon officials to take action against the stores will likely be difficult. Oregon also is one of only a handful of states with no obscenity law, the state’s constitution provides free speech protections that are considered more liberal than those in the U.S. Constitution, and twice during the past 10 years, voters in Oregon have rejected attempts to add language to the state’s constitution regulating adult entertainment.
