Anti-Porn Senator Proposes Porn Be Declared a "Public Health Hazard"

Porn is a "crisis" according to one U.S. senator.

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A Utah senator is stuck in 1962. A recently unearthed anti-porn film from 1962 told viewers the first step to becoming a murderer was looking at porn. This senator, who would be shocked to find out some Americans would do porn for $1 million, would wholeheartedly agree. 

Mormon Republican Sen. Todd Weiler proposed a bill to officially declare porn a "public health hazard” in Utah. Weiler cited a U.K. study that showed people who watched a lot of porn “showed similar brain activity as seen in drug addicts," writes the Associated Press. In addition he blames porn for the hypersexualization of kids and influencing "riskier sexual behavior."

Weiler said, "It's not just a kooky thing that some, you know, politician from Mormon Utah came up with. When I was a kid, people might sneak a Playboy magazine and look at it. Now, you've got all kinds of horrible, graphic images that are available to anyone with an Internet connection one or two clicks away."

The bill doesn't state anything about banning porn altogether just the need for calling it a "crisis" in order to address it through education and more. 

The APreports that out of Utah's 3 million population over half are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which has been an anti-porn crusader. However, the AP points out, porn for them can constitute women in magazines or on TV in "low-cut shirts" or "bikinis." 

Weiler has received support from Republican Gov. Gary Herbert who thinks a 12-step program for porn addicts is necessary. Speaking out against the bill John Stagliano owner of porn production company Evil Angel called porn healthy and added that he feared sex crimes would increase without that outlet. "One person's pornography may be another person's eroticism," Dr. Carl Shubs, a California psychologist specializing in sexuality said. "One person's art may be another person's pornography."

The bill did make reasonable points like saying, "exposure to pornography often serves as childrens' and youths' sex education and shapes their sexual templates," but to that we say get a better sexual education at schools that covers that and teaches beyond abstinence. 

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