Government must act to get hard-core pornography off Bermudian television screens, a United Bermuda Party backbencher said yesterday.
Mrs. Ann Cartwright DeCouto said she was "shocked'' to read in Friday's Mid-Ocean News that companies on the Island selling subscriptions to a Canadian-based pornographic movie channel were not deemed to be breaking Bermudian law.
She noted that Exxxtasy TV of Ottawa was denied a licence to broadcast its satellite programming in Canada last year, but the same programmes were being sent to Bermuda.
"This is a classic case for the saying, `There ought to be a law','' Mrs.
Cartwright DeCouto said during the Motion to Adjourn.
Naysayers would argue that what people did in the privacy of their homes was up to them.
But there could be unsupervised children in those homes, she said. "This is not what we want here in Bermuda.'' There was already enough "soft porn'' on the cable television channels.
"This we can do something about.'' She called on the responsible Minister to draft a bill over the Easter Break and present it to the House of Assembly when it returns on May 6.
Home Electronic Services, based in the Canadian Hotel on Reid Street, has registered almost 100 new subscribers to the service in the last month.
The Attorney General's chambers has ruled that the sale of subscriptions to the triple X-rated movie channel does not contravene The Obscene Publications Act.
Exxxtasy also beams its movies by satellite into the United States.
Mrs. Cartwright DeCouto recently resigned her Delegated Affairs portfolio over the Independence issue to sit as a backbencher.