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Clergy Group Warns of Porn Sites Linked to Civil Rights Names

By Adelle Banks

Religion News Service Digest May 25, 2006

(RNS) Two Boston-based religious groups are cautioning churches and parents about Web sites _ including two featuring the names of civil rights leaders _ that may lead unsuspecting children to pornography.

TechMission, a nationwide ministry that assists churches in boosting computer literacy, started drawing attention to the sites MartinLutherKing.com and JesseJackson.com after learning about them in April.

"I think it's disgusting to use the names of civil rights leaders to attract kids in urban communities to porn sites," said Andrew Sears, executive director of TechMission. "It's against everything that they stood for."

His organization has worked with the Black Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston by holding workshops and distributing information that will help parents get free filtering software to prevent their children from being exposed to porn sites.

"I think it's terrible. I think it's predatory," said Harold Sparrow, executive director of the interdenominational alliance of dozens of Boston-area churches and ministries.

Noting that children doing searches on civil rights leaders could be lured to porn sites, he said, "I think it's taking advantage of young people."

When computer users type the names of the two sites, they get an on-screen message that reads in red letters: "Warning! No children allowed! You must be at least 18 years old to enter!" Another click leads to www.clubpink.com, which features partially nude women clad in lingerie.

In a related case involving clubpink.com, actor Robert Downey Jr. filed a complaint against Mercedita Kyamko of the Philippines, who was cited as the person registering a domain name featuring his name that "automatically resolved" to the clubpink.com site, according to documents of the World Intellectual Property Organization. In 2004, an administrative panel of the organization's Arbitration and Mediation Center transferred the domain name to Downey.

Copyright 2006 Religion News Service. Used by permission.