The governor of Utah is declaring pornography a "public health hazard."
Gov. Gary R. Herbert signed two measures, one resolution and one bill, that declare the consumption of pornography to be a "public health crisis,"
CNN reports.
The resolution says that pornography "is a public health hazard leading to a broad spectrum of public health impacts and societal harms," according to a report in
The Christian Post.
The resolution doesn't ban pornography, said a USA Today report. The bill requires computer technicians who find child pornography during work to report it to police or the federal child pornography tip line. The punishment is a misdemeanor charge.
Pornography "ought to be seen like a public health crisis," Jeffrey R. Holland, elder of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints said, The Christian Post reports. Holland said, "Until the sirens of a public health war sound, I fear we will be wholly unsuccessful in this fight."
Utah Sen. Todd Weiler sponsored the legislation. He said in a Salt Lake Tribune video on
YouTube that he believed "pornography today is like tobacco was 70 years ago. Some people said tobacco's not addictive, and it's not harmful."
"The science is there" to declare pornography a public health danger, sociology professor Gail Dines said in
The Washington Post. "Porn is not merely a moral nuisance and subject for culture-war debates."
Some say pornography holds no cause for alarm.
"It is a world in which porn exists, and we need to show kids how to live in it," Ian Kermer, a psychotherapist and sex expert, said in
USA Today.
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