Cathy Cleaver is the all-American censor next door.
"Last year the Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression gave me a lifetime achievement award for being a danger to free speech," says Cathy Cleaver. "I thought that was sort of cool. I'm happy that people aren't dismissing me out of hand."
Cleaver hardly personifies the classic image of Big Brother. She's poised, articulate, and media savvy, possessing a well crafted mix of plainspoken approachability and all-American blond good looks. And for the last two years, she's been putting that lethal combination to work as director of legal policy for the Family Research Council - a Washington, DC-based advocacy group devoted to promoting "the traditional family unit and the Judeo-Christian value system upon which it is built." In the process, the council has moved to the forefront of the crusade to support and defend the Communications Decency Act, and Cathy Cleaver has become one of the most recognizable champions of Internet censorship - cropping up on CNN, Firing Line, and elsewhere, as the woman who wants to protect our kids from porn.
Her soothing persona makes her perfect for the job. "I'm not off-putting," Cleaver admits matter-of-factly. Indeed, Jesse Helms she ain't. If her demeanor suggests more of a soft-spoken Southern belle than an inside the-Beltway pundit, chalk it up to her upbringing in Saint Petersburg, Florida, where Cleaver first formed the ideology that has made her one of the most influential opinion shapers in the country.
It was later, she says, that her antipornography views began to take hold. "I got interested in porn after I saw it nearly ruin people's lives," she says. "I've seen marriages break up when men became obsessed with porn. I've seen men whose use of porn landed them in jail. I've seen women who've suffered because they've been compared to airbrushed nudes."
Cleaver's style is an obvious asset to her cause - her healthy golden looks make it all but impossible for critics to trace the roots of her antiporn sentiment to a lack of personal allure. Cleaver seems to understand the importance of that perception, emphasizing that she's no schoolmarm. "People who are against porn are not against sex," she proclaims. "Sex is a good thing!"
Her brand of conservatism may be warm and friendly, but there are plenty of Internet users who aren't buying her shtick. "I've been called every name in the book," Cleaver says. "I've been called a Nazi, a censor, and a prude." Yet despite the criticism, she insists she's doing the right thing. "It seems almost silly to have to say that I believe in free speech," she says. "I'm not doing anything to harm the First Amendment."
Scans is a monthly department of Wired magazine.
