Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Pink Cross Foundation: Charitable Organization?? Or: Just Shelley Lubben's Personal Ponzi Scheme??

To say that former porn starlet turned fundamentalist Christian/antiporn activist/"'ex-slut" ministress Shelley Lubben (aka "Roxy") has been on a roll of late would be an understatement; she has gotten plenty of publicity recently through her ties with the mainstream of the antiporn movement.

Lubben was one of the keynote speakers recently in a political luncheon gabfest titled "Pornography Harms" last month, and she was also one of the main speakers at the CalOSHA hearings on imposing mandatory condom requirements on the industry as a result of the "outbreak" last year. She even got some primetime publicity via an interview she did with ABC News for their Nightline news program.

Lately, though, she has had to deal with publicity that isn't quite so glowing...and may even spell real trouble for her and her "movement".

A number of active porn performers have come forth to directly question Lubben's motives in "helping women get out of the porn industry", and to counter some of her more bombastic claims about how women in porn are simply abused and "prostituted".

Monica Foster, for one, has experience in mentoring performers into and out of the industry through her GettingIntoPorn.com and GettingOutOfPorn.com websites; and she has recently been very critical of the fundamentalist Christian focus of Lubben and her PCF "ministry", as well as the lack of actual resources given to ex-performers seeking her help.  Some quotage from Foster, courtesy of her blog:

[...]
I used to admire this woman for her supposed attempts to help people, but after doing a bit of research on her, watching her interviews, and having heard about some of the realities of her organization from a few trusted friends, I'm not so certain that even she is clear as to what her true agenda is.

I think as of current that she is very self centered, immature, emotionally stunted, manipulative and on a quest of fame at the expense of hurting others and their livelihoods.

What I don't like about Lubben most of all, is that she blames everyone and everything else in life for circumstances she found herself in within life, except for herself. She seems to see the world as black and white rather than billions of shades of gray and colors.

We all have free will and we all make CHOICES in life. She CHOSE to work as a prostitute and a porn actress. No one held a gun to her head. Her career choice didn't work out for her and she chose to leave the industry completely, however that was her choice - and for her to demonize EVERYONE and EVERYTHING associated with it now is just plain wrong.
But even that is dwarfed by the campaign of another porn performer, Julie Meadows (aka Lydia Lee), whom has virturally launched a one-woman crusade to publically expose Lubben and the Pink Cross Foundation for the frauds they allegedly are. Meadows has been using both her own blog and her space on Mike South's blog to openly question both the motives and the actions of the PCF, and recently she has focused on their tax exempt status as charitable contributions.

Using the tax returns that were filed by the PCF in 2008 and 2009 -- returns that are public record and accessible to anyone thanks to disclosure regulations -- Julie and her husband Doug found countless questionable innaccuracies, inconsistencies, and questionable data that could possibly lead to genuine inquiries about the PCF's tax exempt status, let alone about whether or not they are living up to their professed goal of "helping adult performers get out of the pornography industry", or just exploiting ex-performers that much worse in order to line her pockets.

To that end, Doug and Julie created a video in which Doug documents in detail the inconsistencies and questions raised by the "tax documents", and openly wonders whether or not they are mere ruses designed to fend off more detailed auditing of their financial affairs. The video was originally posted to Julie's home blog, then to her YouTube account home page (JulieMeadowsEnt) in four parts; it is also now available over at my own personal SmackDog Chronicles blog.

I highly reccommend you watch the video (or the series) in its entirity; it is, to say the least, quite illuminating.




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