Fox Television has informed the Federal Communications Commission that it will not pay the agency's proposed $91,000 fine for a pixelated strip show on Married in America, broadcast in 2003. "FOX believes that the FCC's decision in this case was arbitrary and capricious, inconsistent with precedent, and patently unconstitutional," the network declared in a press release.

But the media company's detailed, 49-page Petition for Reconsideration, submitted to the agency at the same time, goes far beyond the terse press release. It all but wonders if the FCC's indecency analysts are projecting their own sexual fantasies into the programming that they evaluate. And the Petition sets the stage for yet another legal confrontation as the Supreme Court prepares to hear the FCC's appeal on its "fleeting expletive" rulings, struck down by a lower court in New York City.

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