Pastors Team Up With Porn For Creepy PSA'a

Meet Pete the Porno Puppet, coming soon to a Public Service Announcement near you.

Part “Sesame Street,” part “Odd Couple,” Pete is the brainchild of two pastors and a pornographer.

Gross, 28, and Foster, 32, are the founding ministers of Fireproof Ministries, a nonprofit Christian outreach group that has launched a crusade against the multi-billion dollar pornography industry. Not content to preach to the converted, the duo took a more unorthodox tack: they launched XXXchurch.com, a “Christian porn site” to educate Web surfers about the addictiveness of porn and the damage it can do to a person’s life. (Their first PSA ran on cable featuring a cast of dwarf actors, but the nonprofit organization Little People of America demanded Gross and Foster kill it because they found the tag line—“porn stunts your growth”—offensive.) They also host booths at adult film industry conventions in Las Vegas. “We debuted our site at a porn show,” says Gross. “We’re not yelling at people...We kept going back to these shows because they kept asking us back.”

The ad is cute, if a touch creepy. It’s got a children’s show flavor with a no-brainer message for adults: If you have kids in your home, get rid of your stash.

On May 4 TechTV, a cable network devoted to quirky technology will air the director’s cut (which actually features simulated puppet sex and masturbation) and interview Gross and Foster. But Pete may just be too hardcore for prime time. The PSA is meeting resistance at just about every network and local cable outlet.

XXXChurch site featuring Pete the Porno sock puppet.

The American porn industry is one of California's major exports. In the 1970s it was a $600 million a year business. Today it's an $11 billion a year business, from a Wired Larry Flynt interview.