COMMENTARY : CRUSADE TAKES AFTERNOONS OFF

Last week, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to accept the recommendations of the Los Angeles County Anti-Pornography Task Force.

Mercifully, the 21-page report-- which cited the findings of the Meese Commission in calling for tighter standards in policing obscene materials--did not indulge in the kind of vigilantism that has characterized some citizen groups crusading for clean living at the expense of others.

To date, the legions of the righteous waging holy war against immorality in America have taken on movies, prime-time television, rock lyrics, cable programming, upscale skin mags and “Catcher in the Rye,” not to mention subliminal satanism in the Procter & Gamble label and the theme song from “Mr. Ed.”

So much for the easy targets.

But what about an entertainment medium that regularly brings to the screen promiscuity, adultery, incest, endlessly serial marriages, drug abuse, violence and double-dealing of every imaginable variety, conduct often portrayed as normative behavior; where people who do good are not always rewarded and those who do evil are not punished?

You know, daytime soap operas.

Last week alone there was seduction, illegitimate birth and divorce on “All My Children” and attempted rape, an alleged affair, voodoo and a back-street abortion on “As the World Turns,” not to mention dirty doings at the Love mansion (“Another World”), pill addiction (“Capitol”), teen-age pregnancy (“Guiding Light”), suicide and even toxic cookies (“Santa Barbara”). On “One Life to Live,” according to the newspaper capsule, “Mitch orders the drugged Cassie to put on a skimpy shortie nightgown.”

Where are the Jerry Falwells and other custodians of the public morality when it comes to what the pandering promos call “love in the afternoon”? Why the conspicuous silence about network shows that breathlessly offer “passion in the heat of the desert in the heat of the day,” complete with fleshy bedroom scenes, and are readily available to any youngster home from school?

Could it be that these dramas-- with their ample supply of pre-, extra-, intra- and post-marital sex--are the secret vice of the “traditional family values” gang? After all, with dad at work and the kids at school, soap operas are the Total Woman’s daytime home companion. Like most of us, the one thing modern-day Know Nothings may know is what they like, and it surely isn’t all art and Bible stories.

Not that evangelical leaders don’t recognize the threat posed by the soap operas.

The National Federation for Decency, headed by the Rev. Donald Wildmon, has noted the problem in its newsletter, but a spokeswoman for the Tupelo, Miss.-based organization said in a recent telephone interview that “we do not monitor soap operas. We do prime time only.”

A recent broadcast of Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” television show featured back-to-back segments on the issue.

One was an interview with a Christian network soap opera star who explained how he was fighting the immorality “from within,” and that if he quit, some less principled actor might take his place.

The other segment featured a farm housewife from Macon, Ga., whose afternoon viewing habits turned into “an obsession that began to threaten her marriage.” Because of her soap-opera viewing, the woman explained over a dramatic re-creation of the incident, “my values had gotten so warped” that she had gone out and had an affair.

A recent episode of the popular “General Hospital” that was to have included honeymoon bedroom play between two of the stars went so far that the network censored them, according to People magazine.

Despite such reports, there have been no public campaigns against the shows or any of the threats of mass-advertiser boycotts that have been so visible in the past, and the U.S. Commission on Pornography, which released its final report in July, did not consider soap operas. The silence of leading reformers on this subject, I suspect, has more to do with maintaining their base of support than upholding morality.

It’s a tough job, weeding somebody else’s secret garden. As the Meese Commission hearings demonstrated, the process inevitably becomes a matter of personal judgment and taste. Absent the elements of violence and children in visual depictions, it’s often difficult to define the precise boundary between the sensual and the sexual, the erotic and the pornographic.

“Sexuality and nudity are a part of life, and if it’s appropriate, fine,” said Gloria Steinem, explaining why Ms. magazine accepted Calvin Klein’s Obsession ad. “There’s a difference between women in tight jeans--where the ads are aimed at pleasing men--and ads like the Calvin Klein Obsession ad, where a man and a woman are in positions of equality.”

When it comes to the written word, delineating what should be forbidden from what should be permitted is especially difficult. Thus Kurt Vonnegut in high school is dangerous for junior, but bodice-busting romances for mama are harmless. Fiorello LaGuardia, the late mayor of New York, issued the definitive judgment on censorship of literature, proclaiming that “no girl was ever ruined by a book.”

Jesus is pretty tough on hypocrites, on one occasion admonishing those about to confront an adulterous woman: “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.” Perhaps the absolutist abolitionists sense that taking on soap operas and romances just might result in some weeping and gnashing of teeth--not to mention some understanding for the rights of others--among the otherwise faithful.