University Caves to Government Pressure, Cancels Public Screening of XXX Movie

The University of Maryland faced the possibility of losing $424 million in state funding if it went ahead with a planned public screening this weekend of Digital Playground's $10 million porn spectacular, Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge. As a result, the screening was cancelled, although the firestorm might have just begun. During a budget meeting in the state senate on Friday, Baltimore County Republican Andrew Harris called the planned event "shocking" and suggested budgetary language that said, in effect, that if a public university exhibited pornography, it would forfeit state funding. The Stagnetti screening was planned by the student- run Hoff Theater in response to student requests for a XXX feature, and Pirates II was selected because of the award winning film's high production value and the presence of a plot. The theater has shown porn movies in years past - including Deep Throat just a few years ago - to very little negative reaction. "Pornography is not fun. It's poison," Harris claimed during he senate debate, although Stagnetti's Revenge has played on several college campuses prior to the Maryland screening, spawning zero controversy. On its website, the Hoff theater said it believed the film would have provided an opportunity to "engage students in a discussion about the national dialogue revolving around pornography...got lost in the titillation revolving around the film's showing." The bad guy for everyone in this debate seems to be the University. Obviously, the senate took offense and students had been buying plenty of tickets only to see the screening cancelled at the last minute. Even activist groups, like the student coalition Feminism Without Borders and the Maryland Coalition Against Pornography, both of which were against the exhibition of pornography, say the University is not responding to the right influence. Rather than doing the right thing, they charge, the school is only influenced by the almighty dollar. "The University of Maryland should be responding to the power of ideas, not the power of the purse," said MCAP spokesman Aaorn Titus. "I would challenge the university to conduct a thorough inquiry into the harms of pornography."

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