Earlier this year, Utah Republicans declared pornography a “public health crisis.” But apparently, that isn’t enough. If the Mormon-led Utah GOP have their way, next year’s state legislative session will see the passage of another law that seeks to put statewide Internet filters in place that ensure the men and women of Utah cannot view pornographic content.
And by pornographic content, I mean the large number of “Mormon” PornHub searches being conducted in Utah. I guess those garments really do it for people.
State Sen. Todd Weiler, R-District 23, who spearheaded the effort to declare pornography a “public health crisis,” is also leading the charge to censor the Internet in Utah. According to state Sen. Weiler’s proposal, Internet users in Utah would by default be unable to access pornographic materials online. The only way they would be able to get access to Internet pornography would be to contact their service provider and directly opt-out of the filter.
State Sen. Weiler’s views on pornography are extreme.
“I believe that pornography today is like tobacco was 70 years ago. 70 years ago people said tobacco’s not addictive and it’s not harmful, and that’s what some people are saying about pornography today. I happen to believe that it is addictive and it is harmful… It’s undermining relationships, and ultimately if someone gets divorced, that affects the government because we end up with more children and spouses on government welfare.”
So, let’s get this straight. Pornography undermines relationships, which could ultimately lead to divorce and if said divorce takes place, more children and spouses end up on government welfare. This is what state Sen. Weiler is insinuating.
I’ll admit this scenario is plausible, in the sense that it’s not outside the realm of possibility that a marriage could be destroyed by pornography consumption and the divorce could lead to the need for state welfare. But, at the same time, this isn’t a good reason to impose a blanket Internet filter. In fact, there are some First Amendment activists who think state Sen. Weiler’s proposal restricts free speech.
But since when do hard-right religious lawmakers actually care about free speech anyway?
Featured image by Scott Catron, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.
h/t Raw Story
