Cambridge to host debate titled "This House believes pornography does a good public service"

The students and faculty at England's revered Cambridge University can't believe pornography is a public service, can they?

Or is next month's scheduled debate featuring porn stars and directors at the once-august Cambridge Union Society a crass attempt to put students back in the seats of a historic debate hall?

The 196-year-old Cambridge debate society's topic for Feb. 17 is "This House believes pornography does a good public." It's a provocative question that follows controversies last year over the motion "This House believes Islam is a threat to the West" and classes on pole-dancing.

The society's own president says its standing has suffered, but Lauren Davidson insisted in an interview with the Cambridge News that pornography is a topic the group wants to consider seriously. Nearly half of American families in report that pornography is a problem in their home, according to the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families.

Still other topics to be debated this term at Cambridge are "This House would not get married" and "This House believes the veil empowers women".

"This term is not about dumbing down at all," Davidson told the Cambridge News. "We've got two doctors flying in for this debate — it's a very serious topic. The Union has a reputation for doing things in the past for the sake of controversy, but that's not what we're doing here."

She pointed out Cambridge also will host serious speakers this term, like conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and James Watson, the Nobel Prize-winning co-discoverer of DNA.

The Women's Officer for the Cambridge University Students' Union, Sarah Peters-Harrison, told the Cambridge News, "Whether porn is a casual narcotic or something stronger is up for discussion, but I think it needs to be discussed. This is something we don't talk about enough."

One anti-pornography crusader is looking forward to joining the debate panel for the opportunity to speak out against an industry she escaped.

Former porn film actress Shelley Lubben is now a chaplain with a book and a web site aimed at telling the "hardcore truth" about the pain and suffering pornography causes.

"Porn is not glamorous," she told The Daily Mail. It destroys lives and is an industry of human trafficking and rampant sexually transmitted diseases that is destroying our nations and families of the world. Porn is a huge lie and I intend to expose it."