The president of an Alabama-based video retailer that agreed to stop renting and selling hard-core pornographic videos in one Alabama county said he is standing by the firm’s decision to continue doing so in other areas.
But Harrison Parrish, president of Movie Gallery, said the chain will work with any community that is opposed to rental of pornographic material.
Based in Dothan, Movie Gallery is the third largest video retailer in the country, following Blockbuster and Hollywood Entertainment.
The video retailer has more than 960 stores in 31 states, some 200 of which carry pornographic videotapes.
Commenting on an article in the January 2001 issue of American Family Association Journal, Parrish defended the right of that organization and others opposed to Movie Gallery’s policy.
While supporting the organization’s right to protest, Movie Gallery apparently is not in agreement with them on their position.
The article quotes an unidentified Movie Gallery employee as saying, “Movie Gallery’s position is and will remain to be that we can’t allow any organization or person or handful of people to censor the product lines that we carry.”
However, Movie Gallery did agree to remove pornographic videotapes from one of its stores in Clanton last September, following the threat of an economic boycott by Baptist churches in the Chilton Association.
The threat was made by Jimmy Simpler, pastor of Verbena Baptist Church in Verbena and head of the Chilton County Association Christian Ethics and Issue Team, after he learned the Clanton store carried pornographic movies.
In a letter to Movie Gallery, Simpler pointed out that the 55 churches that are a part of the Chilton Association have a membership of 16,000 people — approximately half the population of Chilton County.
He said Movie Gallery responded by agreeing to remove the material if the church members pledged to support the video store in Clanton.
Following the decision, Simpler said he agreed to support Movie Gallery and encouraged pastors of Baptist churches in the Chilton Association to ask their congregations to do likewise.
Asked how the Clanton store differed from others distributing pornography, Parrish said the residents of Chilton County made their intentions known.
“We will work with any community,” Parrish said.
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