Larry Flynt, the man who built his empire on what even the New York Times calls “raunchy publications” died earlier this week. Flynt pushed all the boundaries on so-called legal pornography, winning court cases that caused some to say he was a “free speech hero.” But feminists and Christians, in a moment of rare agreement, didn’t see him that way. To feminists, he was a man who objectified women in the worst of ways. To Christians, he blatantly defied God’s standards for human sexuality and thereby harmed people and society in general.
Flynt laid the groundwork for the tidal wave of pornography we are currently experiencing thanks largely to the Internet.. As Christians, we want human flourishing—in other words, we want a society where the laws are truly in the best interest of people. Nothing about obscenity and pornography encourages human flourishing. Rather it hurts individuals and destroys relationships, especially marriages. Christians should avoid it at all costs.
