The US government spent 2 million dollars in its investigation. In 1994, police raided an art gallery in Tucson and seized innocuous photographs of Robyn Stoutenburg's four-year old son. Marilyn Zimmerman, art professor at Indiana's Wayne State University, was the target of a search and seizure operation after a janitor discovered a discarded proof sheet of Zimmerman's three-year old daughter and turned it in to the police. And another photography student, Eljat Feurer of Bernardsville, New Jersey, was arrested and forced to live away from home for a year when he took nude photos of his six-year old daughter for a course at the International Center for Photography in New York City. From time to time, entire cultures go insane.
People become overwhelmed by problems that seem beyond comprehension or solution.
At such times, we need evil to take palpable form. In the 1950s, the target in the US was domestic communists and other subversives. In Germany during the 30s, it was the Jews. Nearly twenty years ago, Anita Bryant started her campaign against sexual minorities. Bryant's campaign has evolved, but it has never abated.