The State of
Utah just recently voted (and passed)
legislature to pay $75,000 (next year this will be
doubled) a year for a
dedicated, anti-
obscencity prosecuter, this prosecuter has been aptly named the
Porn Czar.
As of this write up the Utahn Porn Czar is Ms. Paula Houston. Brigham Young University graduate and follower of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She has stated that her faith will not block her impartiality.
"This is a historic day... ...There's absolutely no redeeming value to pronography, and I, for one, will not allow pornographers to hide behind the First Amendment."
--Mark Shurtleff, Utah Attorney General
Houston has said that she will fight porn, not on the grounds of free speech, but, on the grounds that it is addictive, like any drug. She, in essence, argues that pornographers are simply drug dealers dealing the oldest drugs known to man.
My own opinion on this is that I agree with most of what Houston and her comrades in Utah have said on scientific and moral grounds. However, with regards to the law, ignoring the constitution outright based on science has caused many a problem in the past. A perfect example of this is abortion. At what point do we define a foetus as human rather than animal? In this case, at what point do we define the chemicals within the human body as drugs? Infact, this could get even more hairy. At what point does one consider the attire and actions of a person pornographic? If a woman walks down the street in Utah in a miniskirt, is she a pornographer? Should she be prosecuted for dealing drugs? What if a couple is making out in a park? I'm sure there are dozens more similar questions one could raise to make this an even more heated holy war.
So, in conclusion, perhaps Utahns should ask themselves, "Do we really need another messy debate raging between the liberal and conservative halves of this country?"