CHILLING EFFECTS "The forces of chastity are amassing once again," ...

ECTS "The forces of chastity are amassing once again," says sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in the film biography, Kinsey. Days before the movie opened, conservative groups announced plans to protest the glorification of Kinsey, a man they blame for the sexual revolution and, consequently, AIDS. The director of Concerned Women for America's Culture and Family Institute even compared Kinsey to Josef Mengele.

Such is the risk of free speech. Let them picket theaters and hand out leaflets until pigs fly, the cows come home and hell freezes over, as long as the government isn't involved.

How chilling the effect must be when the latest fine by the FCC against a network-a record $1.2 million against Fox for its "sexually suggestive" Married by America-resulted from letters of complaint by only three individuals.

Jack Thompson, an attorney in Coral Gables with a reputation as an obsessive crusader against indecency, has filed about a dozen complaints with the FCC about the Howard Stern Show, most recently concerning "The Howard Stern Amputee Beauty Contest." Thompson says, "this was so far over the line that the content constitutes not just 'indecency' but also 'profanity' as that legal term of art is used in such regulatory matters."

In a letter to Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom, Thompson made his demand:

"I have only one request, only one requirement, and it must be done quickly. Fire Howard Stern. Terminate him now, and I go away. You know you can terminate him right now for his ongoing promotion, on the air, of his upcoming Sirius program. What he did in that regard yesterday on your air is beyond belief. You can dump him right now for that alone. Everyone knows he's been warned not to do that. Pull the trigger. Fire him. That gives you a 2-for-1 deal. You get rid of Stern and you get rid of Jack Thompson. I'll be much more of a pain than Howard Stern ever was. It's my job."

Meanwhile, Daily Variety reported, "Here are some late election returns: Local stations are running scared on program content... The scheduled preemptions [of Saving Private Ryan] come even though most, if not all, of the stations now balking at running [Ryan] have aired it in the past. The pic, which contains more than three dozen utterances of the word 'fuck,' must air in its unedited form, as per ABC's license agreement with DreamWorks."

In 2002, the FCC, responding to a complaint from censorship advocate Donald Wildmon, ruled that Saving Private Ryan was not indecent. But that was before Janet Jackson's halftime breast-baring, when the media made a mountain out of an implant.