From www.kutv.com- One photo put her face in newspapers and magazines, and blunted presidential aspirations for a once-prominent politician. A smiling Donna Rice sat on the lap of married U.S. Senator Gary Hart, on a yacht named “Monkey Business.”
That was 1987.
Saturday, Donna Rice Hughes will speak to the annual conference of the Utah Coalition Against Pornography. She is now a noted fighter against porn, including the pervasive and increasingly graphic and violent internet variety.
“When 1987 happened, my life fell apart. I was absolutely devastated,”said Hughes in an interview with 2 News Friday. She said she went “underground” for seven years, returned to her Christian faith, and ended up getting hired by the anti-porn non profit group, “Enough is Enough.”
“I said, ‘Okay God, I don’t know how you’re going to use this, but I ask that you use it for good, for something bigger and better than me,” said Hughes, reflecting on her post-scandal prayer.
Battling pornography, she said, was the answer. Hughes went to the U.S. Capitol, and stood against internet porn, an industry which may generate billions of dollars a year. She is now president and chairman of “Enough is Enough,” and has taken the fight against porn to Oprah, the Today Show, CNN and a host of other media outlets.
“Actually, the problem has grown worse, and a lot of the reason for that is the laws that we have not been adequately enforced,” said Hughes. She sees a “perfect storm,” for online porn: tech savvy purveyors using deceptive marketing to reach kids under the radar of unknowing parents, while federal obscenity laws are not being enforced.
During the Clinton years, Hughes said nobody was prosecuted under federal obscenity statutes. She estimated perhaps there were one hundred such prosecutions during the Bush Administration.
The anti-porn conference is at the South Towne Expo. Governor Jon Huntsman will also speak at the event.
Hughes seems commited to her cause, but also seems a reluctant warrior. “I would have never picked this issue, because it’s sexually charged and it’s difficult, and coming from the scandal I had bee involved in,” she said. “I had to take a step of faith.”