DATE: Wednesday, November 26, 1997          TAG: 9711260468

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Update 

SOURCE: THE BALTIMORE SUN 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   42 lines

JUDGE UPHOLDS MILITARY'S BAN ON PORN SALES.

Earlier this year, a federal judge struck down a law banning the sale or rental of sexually explicit materials on military bases.

Ruling that the military has a broad right to control the message it sends the troops about morals, a federal appeals court has upheld a law that bans the sale or rental of sexually explicit magazines, films and tapes at military bases.

In a 2-1 decision that appears headed for the Supreme Court, the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals based in New York City revived a year-old law that a federal judge had struck down early this year.

By throwing out a constitutional challenge to the law, the appeals court ruled Friday that the armed forces could begin enforcing restrictions on sales or rentals of sexually explicit material.

The majority said it accepted the Pentagon's argument that the military's interest in ``the highest form of personal and professional conduct . . . could be undermined if military personnel believed that military commanders approved the sale of the materials at exchanges.''

Congress passed the law, and the Pentagon issued rules to implement it, the appeals court said, to ``end the military's involvement in the sale of sexually explicit materials.'' The military, it added, was entitled to promote ``military honor, professionalism, proper decorum, and core values,'' and the 1996 law was a reasonable way to achieve that goal.

Michael A. Bamberger, a lawyer for a group of publishers that challenged the law, said he would either ask the full appeals court to review the 2-1 decision by a three-judge panel of the court or appeal directly to the Supreme Court.

The law restricts military stores from selling or renting erotic publications, films or tapes. It does not prohibit service members from possessing sexually explicit items, from sharing them with others, or from buying or renting them elsewhere and bringing them back to the base. KEYWORDS: PORNOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE MILITARY DIRTY MAGAZINE

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