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Congressional Testimony

July 25, 2001
Lion & Lamb member Laura Smit testifies before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.
"This hearing is intended to consider the need for a universal ratings system... Let’s start with the alphabet soup that parents are now required to memorize.   For the movies, we have G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17.  For television, we have: TV-Y, TV-Y7, TV-G, TV-PG, TV14, and TV-MA.  For video games, we have 'E' for Everyone, 'T' for Teen, 'M' for Mature, 'RP' for Rating Pending and “AO” for Adult Only.  The music industry has a one-size-fits-all 'Parental Advisory.'"

July 20, 2001
Lion & Lamb executive director Daphne White testifies before a Congressional oversight committee.
"As a parent, I can tell you that our children are still exposed to violent entertainment every single day. Industry groups will tell you that they have curbed all their marketing abuses, but parents will confirm that the problem is far from solved."

October 16, 2000
Joanne Cantor, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an internationally recognized expert on children and the mass media, testifies before the Federal Communications Commission
"Lots of people say it's the parents' responsibility to raise their children, and as the mother of a 11-year-old son, I agree. But in order for us to do a good job of parenting, broadcasters need to provide us with three things: unbiased information about the risks and benefits of media exposure; understandable, timely information about what's in a program; and an assurance that our children won't be ambushed by horrifying images in inappropriately placed ads."

March 21, 2000
Sabrina Steger, Lion & Lamb member and mother of Kayce Michele Steger (killed in the Paducah, KY school shooting), testifies before the Senate Commerce Committee on the impact of violent video games.
"I am the person you do not want to be. I live a parent’s worst nightmare. The nightmare does not go away and the saying that time heals all wounds is greatly overrated."

Craig A. Anderson, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Department Chair at Iowa State University testifies before the Senate Commerce Committee, unveiling research on the impact of interactive violence on children.
"...[T]here is one clear and simple message that parents, educators, and public policy makers such as yourselves need to hear: Playing violent video games can cause increases in aggression and violence. A second message to take away from my report is also very important: There are good reasons to expect that the effects of exposure to violent video games on subsequent aggressive behavior will be even greater than the well-documented effects of exposure to violent television and movies."

David Walsh, President of the National Institute on Media and the Family, testifies before the Senate Commerce Committee citing statistics on interactive violence and children.
"As the annual report cards issued by the National Institute on Media and the Family have shown, the most violent games still find their way into the hands of millions of children and teens."

May 4, 1999
Lion & Lamb executive director Daphne White testifies before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.
"It is time to level the playing field. If you are serious about stopping the merchandising of violence to children, I implore you to appoint a blue-ribbon, non-industry-dominated commission to study the ways that violence is being marketed and cross-marketed to young children, and to find ways of protecting children from this cultural poison."