Students criticized an on-campus Christian organization for being unable to spark a comprehensive discussion on the effects of pornography during an event Wednesday.
UNM student Elizabeth Boyle said an event on Wednesday called Porn Nation, sponsored by the Campus Crusade for Christ, also known as CRU, lacked diverse perspectives on the topic of pornography.
“The fact that it’s a biased view from a strictly Christian perspective is kind of a turn-off. I’m an agnostic, and I don’t watch porn,” she said. “I appreciate the fact that they’re trying to set it up as an open forum and trying to be as unbiased as possible, but I think they really do need to have more people that are agnostic, that are atheist, that are of different religions from them, in order to get a more vast perspective.”
Jason Dencklau, the UNM team leader of the Campus Crusade for Christ, said Porn Nation wasn’t a religious-based presentation.
“I think it’s pretty clear that the majority of Christians would say that they would be against pornography, but I don’t think it necessarily means it’s a bias of the dialogue,” he said.
Ephraim Colbert, a student who attended Porn Nation, said he was disappointed by the presentation.
“There were more important things he could have addressed,” Colbert said. “I was hoping it would be more of an open dialogue type of setting versus someone up on stage giving their opinion on the topic.”
Colbert said the keynote speaker Michael Leahy spent too much time defining porn’s boundaries.
“He even went as far as to say that magazine covers such as Maxim, Sports Illustrated and Cosmopolitan showing women in scantily clad dress are pornography,” he said. “I don’t necessarily agree with that.”
Dencklau said CRU members are open and enthusiastic about talking with people coming from a different perspective.
“It’s been fun interacting with people and being able to be open enough to hear what people have to say even if their views differ with mine,” he said. “I’m OK with that.”
Still, Colbert said he would like to see future events with more open discussion.
“I could see myself attending that,” he said. “I was more curious to hear what other people’s thoughts were on the topic, and with an event hosted of that nature, it appears you would be able to hear other people’s opinions.”
