Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has called for a war on pornography. On his website, he says, "It contributes to misogyny and violence against women" First, let's talk about the futility of doing this. The porn industry is a multibillion dollar industry. All of those people watching aren't all perverts. He cites no facts that porn cause violence against women. And what about the cost of prosecuting the hundreds of porn providers? Here's how hard it is to get a conviction on obscenity these days. In Cincinnati where porn king Larry Flynt was prosecuted for obscenity, he now has a Hustler store downtown that sells hardcore pornography. The world has changed and the Internet has led that change.
But this leads to Santorum's bigger problem regarding sex. He's out of touch with overwhelming majority of Americans. First, he opposes contraceptives. Yet, he ignores the fact that 99 per cent of sexually active women have used it at some point. He's against gay rights. Once, he said that gay sex was akin to man on dog sex and incest. On abortion, he opposes it to such a degree that he would not allow a woman who got raped be allowed to have an abortion. So, a woman would be hurt twice. Once for the rape and forced to take give birth to the rapist's child.
On pornography, he has no conception about what most Americans think about it. It's a multibillion dollar industry for one reason. Most Americans are okay with it. And I'm not talking about child pornography which is despicable. You see Americans believe in the right of privacy. Santorum doesn't. Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall put it this way when the court struck down a law prohibiting possession of pornography. "[I]f the First Amendment means anything, it means that a State has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch." Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969)
Rick Santorum doesn't want to return us to the fifties, he wants to return us back to the nineteenth century when it comes to sex. I find it laughable when Republicans scream about freedom that they can't get out of our bedrooms. For Santorum, the only safe sex is one sanctioned by the Catholic church.
Stephen Colbert on Santorum's Google problem.
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