Mommy Life: Who is Mainstream Loudoun?

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March 7, 2007 6:58 PM

Who is Mainstream Loudoun?

For me – having spent so much of my life in the “Personal is the political” tradition, I always like to start from my own experience.

I first heard the name Mainstream Loudoun when I was living in Marin County, California. I was working as editor for Focus on the Family’s California Citizen (memo to Ted, Jonathan and others prowling this blog for “dirt” on me: Yes, as a matter of fact, I received a paycheck for three years from Focus on the Family for my research/reporting/editing – and I’m proud to put it all to use today!).

In July 2001 I was researching an article on the ongoing fight over internet filters, in which the ACLU and other “first amendment” groups were championing the right to access pornography in public libraries. I came across a court case in which a group called Mainstream Loudoun, with assistance from the ACLU, had succeeded in having filters removed from Loudoun County public libraries.

Little did I dream that thirteen months later I would actually be moving to Loudoun County!

But since their big library victory in the late 90s, Mainstream Loudoun seems to have been keeping a pretty low profile – barely on the radar until October 2006.

I see from their website that in response to the mandated posting of “In God We Trust” in the hallways of Virginia public schools - pretty cool, huh? - Mainstream Loudoun succeeded in having posted E Pluribus Unum (Latin for From Many, One) posted right alongside each one. I think that’s pretty cool, too. I wonder that it never occured to them that those statements are not incompatible at all.

Still, though Mainstream Loudoun calls itself “a voice for moderation,” it makes the following outrageous claim:

Like many other communities, Loudoun has been targeted by radical right groups intent on using public policy to impose their extreme ideology on everyone.

Excuse me? I grew up in DC/Falls Church/Alexandria. Even 15 years after the opening of Dulles Airport, Loudoun was a decidedly small rural traditional (Christian) community. So who’s really imposing their extreme ideology on everyone?

Last fall, after years of inactivity, Mainstream Loudoun decided to mount a crusade against an abstinence presentation by Keith Deltano at Loudoun County High School. The ACLU graciously sent a set of guidelines to the school to make sure the students would not be harmed by hearing anything smacking of spirituality. But Deltano’s no fool and since he cares about kids and wants to continue delivering his message, he plays by the rules.

If anything, the resulting stir – which attracted national media attention – only served to increase Deltano’s scope of influence. (Read my account - with links - here)

In January, Mainstream Loudoun found to their horror that Deltano had been invited back to Loudoun to speak at two other high schools and to host a workshop for interested parents. Wasting no time, their president Kathy Hawes wrote a letter and sent it to every single paper in the county warning parents of this terrible threat to our teens.

I reported yesterday on the presentation I observed at Dominion High, but let me paint it better: a small cloud of grumpy-looking Mainstream Loudoun witnesses - among a sea of completely captivated high school students - just looking for something, anything to get on Deltano since they couldn’t hang him for being a Christian. The one-sided reporting of Charlie Jackson (quoting only Mainstream Loudoun, not interviewing Deltano or any of the vast majority of students or parents who wanted him to speak (and by the way, students were not required to attend the assembly). The refusal of Leesburg Today to print letters to the editor by anyone supporting Deltano’s abstinence presentation while printing at least four against it. Full story here.

So who is Mainstream Loudoun? Well, I guess we can decide for ourselves how mainstream they really are. They pride themselves on winning what they describe as the “prestigious” Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award. (For you younger people who might have missed this important piece of our cultural history, Hugh Hefner is the octogenarian who made his fortune publishing Playboy)

They also benefited during their lawsuit against the Loudoun County libraries from the services of ACLU lawyer Charles Rust-Tierney, who issued the following on their behalf during Loudoun's library battle: STATEMENT OF THE ACLU OF VIRGINIA TO THE LOUDOUN COUNTY LIBRARY BOARD December 1, 1998

Yes, that’s the same Rust-Tierney who went on to serve from 2002-2005 as President of the Virginia ACLU and who is in the news today (but just barely since it's not congruent with our mainstream media's agenda) for his recent arrest on charges of downloading child pornography, including violent rapes of little girls.

From an editorial in last Saturday's Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star called fittingly Let Us Prey

However vile his transgressions--and Mr. Rust-Tierney deserves a presumption of innocence--the accused is in one sense unlike the wayward Catholic priest or evangelical preacher who decries sexual sin in his hiatus between choirboys or call girls. Far from being a moralist, Mr. Rust-Tierney, as president of the Virginia ACLU, argued publicly during the late 1990s against installing smut filters in the computers of Loudoun County public libraries. Perhaps he might now agree that his policy foes had a deeper appreciation of the practical hazards of cyberspace than he then understood. [my emphasis]

That the media has virtually ignored this story prompted this:

Had the cops busted a former leader of Virginia's Southern Baptists for acquiring child-rape porn, the state's coma patients would have known about it.

So true.

Let's agree to never forget the debt we owe to Mainstream Loudoun for their vigilance in keeping pornography in our public libraries and abstinence out of our public schools.

Love,