Well, this little tempest in a teapot is over. Since Abercombie and Fitch and Finch was published in the Springfield News-Leader, I've been both puzzled and pleased by the reaction to the original controversy and to my two cents.
The reaction began the morning that the piece appeared -- I turned on the radio on my way home from work to hear myself being lambasted on KWTO's "Morning Line" talk show. I was quite interested to hear one of the hosts (Bonnie Bell) state that I was trying to take away Michelle Finch's right to her opinion, and the other host (Billy Long) opine that I had written it just to draw attention to myself.
To set the record straight, Ms. Bell was wrong and Mr. Long was, at least partially, right. When I sit down to pen an opinion piece, I am attempting to draw attention to my opinions -- because I think they are correct, and because I believe that, if I write effectively, I can persuade people to share those opinions and act on them. I make a (small) portion of my income from holding opinions and writing on them. Of course I want to draw attention to them! While I am not paid for the articles I submit to the News-Leader, they make good clippings to submit to publishers when I submit a query seeking paid work.
Now, to Ms. Bell. As I stated when I called in to "Morning Line" -- and I want to thank the hosts for giving me a good ten minutes or so to debate the point with them on the air -- I believe that Ms. Finch is, indeed, entitled to her opinion. The point of my article was to call attention to some inconsistencies in that opinion (if it's illegal to sell porn to a minor, it is surely illegal for an adult to send her minor daughter out to buy it), and to hypothesize that Ms. Finch's opinion, while she is entitled to it, doesn't rise to the definition of law. Ms. Finch was and is free to discourage people from purchasing the Abercrombie and Fitch catalog; that was never at issue (although I would tend to think that actions speak louder than words, and that buying 10 copies of the catalog rather militates against a position that other people shouldn't). What she is not free to do is abuse the legal system to impose her prejudices on the rest of us.
Thankfully, the Greene County Prosecutor, after reviewing the catalog, decided not to prosecute the store. The reason? The catalog, as I rightly conjectured in the article, isn't pornographic under the Missouri statutes.This means that the store -- and one particular mother by the name of Michelle Finch -- aren't legally culpable for providing it to a minor.
Anyway...
Normally, I spend an hour writing something like it, let it sit for a day or two, revisit and revise it, send it in and hope that the News-Leader will publish it within a week or so, before it goes stale. I wrote Abercrombie and Fitch and Finch in about 15 minutes and e-mailed it off to the News-Leader. They called that afternoon to verify that it was mine and ask permission to remove the references to the U.S. Mail -- the violation of postal rules was and is conjecture -- and published it the next morning.
This article has received more response, both positive and negative, than most of the stuff I've written for the News-Leader. A couple of discerning readers wrote in to say that I'd already said what they meant. At least one woman wished to publicly state that I need to be tutored in morals. I received e-mails from admiring readers -- even though my address and URL weren't included in the article. It almost hurts to find that my craft and the lengthy time I spend on most articles count for little!
But back to the subject. One aspect of this whole controversy that was left out of the essay was its pre-packaged nature. I noticed, but did not point out, that Ms. Finch sends her daughter to a Christian school. Naturally, I don't have a problem with that, but when she appeared publicly as an anti-porn crusader, I began to question whether or not she "happened" to come across the catalog, or whether she was prompted to do so by what Hillary Rodham Clinton calls "The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy."
In the days and weeks preceding and following Ms. Finch's mini-storm of political action, I noticed that hers was not an isolated episode. Similar things happened in Michigan; the Lieutenant Governor of Illinois made a public crusade of the thing, appealing to her religious right supporters. Public officials in Arkansas and elsewhere did likewise.
The conclusion, while not provable, is inescapable. Some little "pro-family" (read: pro-censorship) outfit issued a newsletter or direct mail appeal, or just a grapevine bit of gossip, asking members and supporters to make a public issue out of the Abercrombie and Fitch catalog. And Ms. Finch took the bait. Or maybe the entity holding the rod and reel was Abercrombie and Fitch itself -- after all, catalog sales went through the roof as soon as the accusations of pornography were aired.
You tell me.
