News Release
For Immediate Release: September 18, 2013
Contact: Diane Gramley 1.814.271.9078 or 1.814.437.5355
AFA of PA Signs Onto Letter to Senate Committee Concerning FCC Nomination
(Harrisburg) The President has nominated Michael O’Rielly to be a Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), however Mr. O’Rielly has yet to address a very important question. The American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA) has signed onto a letter to the chairman and members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation asking that they ask specific questions of Mr. O’Rielly during today’s confirmation hearing.
“The AFA of PA has joined others in signing the letter to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman Jay Rockefeller and its members asking that during confirmation hearings they simply ask FCC nominee O’Rielly if he will do his job and enforce existing federal decency laws — seems simple enough to me,” commented Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.
Increasingly getting “lost in the shuffle” is the fact it is against federal law for indecent material to air during a 16-hour time slot each day! The federal decency law, 18 U.S.C. Section 1464, prohibits profanity and indecent material, including nudity, on broadcast TV between 6 AM and 10 PM. President Obama’s nominee for chair of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, said during confirmation hearings in June that he would support voluntary efforts to clean-up the content of broadcast television rather than cracking down with steep fines. That’s not good enough!
“Broadcast decency is important to Americans as was confirmed in the over 100,000 negative responses back in April when the FCC hinted at weakening the decency enforcement standards even more. Americans want to be assured that they can safely watch television with their children anytime between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. . . . they want the members of the FCC to do their job and asking them if they will, before they are confirmed, should be the first question asked,” Gramley concluded.
As noted in the letter to the Senate Commerce Committee, ” two recent US Supreme Court decisions, FCC v. Fox, 129 S. Ct. 1800 (2009) (Fox I) and FCC v. Fox, 132 S. Ct. 2307 (2012) (Fox II), it is clear that the FCC has full authority to enforce the federal decency law.”
Click here to read the O’Rielly Senate FCC Letter to the US Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
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