Pro-Life Youth Ministry Tour Protests MTV's Lies While Sharing Truth
by Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
August 3, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A ministry with a pro-life message for young people is in the middle of an annual cross-country tour and recently stopped at a popular cable television network's headquarters in order to challenge what it sees as that channel's harmful, youth-targeted message.Each summer, Stand True Ministries takes ten Christian young adults on a tour of the U.S. to educate people about the realities of abortion and to present the gospel. The group travels around the nation, promoting the pro-life message and the good news of Jesus Christ at concerts, seminars, and other events. Along the way from venue to venue, the tour participants stop at strategic locations to pray or to stage protests.
Last week, Stand True was in New York City and took time out to have prayer at a number of local abortion mills and to protest and hand out literature in front of MTV Studios in Times Square. The ministry's president, Bryan Kemper, says it was particularly important for the group to stop at MTV because of the tremendous influence the cable network wields among young people.
MTV's programming and shows are "pretty much all ... centered around sex and the exploitation of American youth," Kemper contends. "They teach young women that they're only good as a commodity," he says, "that their bodies and sex are what is going to help them get along in life."
Meanwhile, the Christian ministry leader points out, MTV's messages are teaching men to objectify and exploit women. "They teach young men, basically, that women are nothing more than a collector's item, like a car or something like that," he warns.
Kemper says the demonstration at MTV was well received. "We were passing out thousands of flyers, talking to a lot of people," he says. And the people they encountered, he notes, were "for the most part, telling us, 'Hey, good job. Thank you for being here.'"
Stand True Ministries' spokesman says many of the young people who were coming out of the MTV Store were also receptive to the Christian protesters' message. As they emerged from the store, he says, several would "come over to us and read the literature, and we'd get a chance to talk to them about what MTV really represents and why they shouldn't be supporting such a channel."
Kemper says MTV has become nothing more than a porn channel targeting young people. A flyer published by Stand True suggests that the cable network "is ignoring relationship simply to sell sex" and that, regardless of how many "reality shows" it produces, "MTV constantly fails to portray anything real."
The flyer also points out that this youth-oriented network actually "peddles sex" to minors, even offering girls of any age free information about abortion, emergency contraception, and sexually transmitted diseases. Also noted is the fact that MTV's website is covered with links to Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion mill in the U.S.
Stand True Ministries' website describes the group as a "Christ-centered youth pro-life organization" and explains that it is committed to "establishing a culture of life, and bringing light to a generation covered by darkness." Though it is important for the unjust laws to change, Kemper believes the only way to create that culture of life and finally bring abortion in America to an end is by turning more and more hearts toward Christ.
