Posted on 08/27/2012 2:00:06 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
The Republican Party’s platform committee declared war on pornography ahead of this week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.
In a Monday morning press release, advocacy group Morality in Media revealed that “new language replaces previous platform wording, which only opposed child pornography.”
According to MIM, the new wording will read, “Current laws on all forms of pornography and obscenity need to be vigorously enforced.”
The party platform was drafted by a 112-member committee and will be unveiled early this week.
Existing obscenity laws “not only prohibit distribution of hardcore pornography on the Internet but also on hotel/motel TV, on cable/satellite TV, and in retail shops,” said MIM President Patrick Trueman.
“Distribution of obscene or hardcore pornography on the Internet is a violation of current federal law,” said Trueman, a former anti-porn prosecutor in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.
Earlier this year, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum attracted raised eyebrows when he promised a “vigorous” crackdown against “the scourge of pornography.” Santorum posted the promise on his presidential campaign’s website.
Mitt Romney, who will officially be nominated as the Republican presidential candidate in Tampa this week, also promised the group a “vigorous” crackdown during the Republican primaries, Trueman told The Daily Caller in July.
Romney, however, has not discussed his position at length in public, and his campaign ignored requests for comment seeking elaboration on his position.
Curiously enough, in addition to promising a crackdown on porn, the party’s platform also calls for “Internet freedom,” TheDC reported last week.
The addition to the porn plank came from Tony Perkins, the Family Research Council president and a GOP delegate from Louisiana, according to MIM.
Other socially conservative positions within this year’s party platform include opposition to abortion, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
In March, The Atlantic chronicled the history of pornography in the GOP platform, noting that it was first mentioned in 1984.
In 1992, the party platform called for “allowing victims of pornography to seek damages from those who make or sell it” and declared, “The time has come for a national crusade against pornography.”
After Bill Clinton won the 1992 election, his administration reined in the number of porn prosecutions, and they remained uncommon throughout the George W. Bush administration.
By 2008, The Atlantic reported, the anti-porn zeal had mellowed and the party’s platform merely addressed child pornography. Under President Barack Obama, Trueman told TheDC in July, the DOJ has initiated no new obscenity prosecutions.
“We are most grateful to Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council who led the effort to get the tough new language into the platform,” said Trueman. “Without enforcement of federal obscenity laws, pornographers have had a green light to target our children and families.”
Is that what passes as logic with you?
More democrat baloney. Sounds like the writer of this tripe has been speaking to Wassweman-Schultz.
“And as usual the whiners choir around here lose their heads rather then realize this is a NON story. “
Well, we’ll see if this dies out or becomes an MSM chant like the War On Women.
I’d expect Larry Flynt, if he’s still alive, to kick the media campaign off.
I hope you are correct that this propaganda won’t be effective, but you are correct, I have become cynical about the GOP’s ability to deal with coordinated media pushes.
Yup. When was the last time anybody even thought about a party platform after the convention, let alone attempted to enforce it?
I read the story.
I do believe that the Repubs should be focusing on the economy, debt, incompetence, etc, instead of porn.
And...as far as porn goes, on the one hand, I don’t really have an opinion except to say that I am happy that the anti-porn people exist. If they didn’t then porn would be delivered to our inboxes on an hourly basis.
On the other hand, I am glad that porn exists. Otherwise, the anti-porn people would find some other cause to try to embrace, like, anti-( insert cause here ).
The porn/anti-porn groups tend to cancel each other out, thank goodness.
The obscenity laws do conflict with the First Amendment. I don’t know how anyone can get around that.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.
The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked:
Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
- George Washington, presidential Farewell Address
Well said.
Some may snicker, but pornography is dragging down society. Yes, this election SHOULD be about things like not killing unborn babies and not allowing porn to invade every facet of our world and not having homosexuality thrown in our kids faces.
>I think you people are in the wrong party.
>Republicans have always had traditional values.
Agreed, but expecting the mother to die to save an unborn child is not a traditional value that needs enforced by law.
Neither is forcing a rape victim to carry a rapists child.
Really? This is what people want to focus the elections on?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes.
(No sarc tag necessary.)
Unless of course you want to dredge up the same old RINO talking points about health care, the economy, and whatnot. You know... the same rhetoric the democrats spew on.
Look. There is NO DIFFERENCE between Obamacare and Romneycare. The ONLY way we conservatives can take back our nation is by taking a stand AGAINST porn. Or abortion. And stand FOR Godly values.
But around FR? It’s obvious to see that porn is far too popular and us true SoCons are being ridiculed as if we were posting at the DUmp.
Sad how things are way too (socially) liberal around here. I, of course blame the libertarians (see tagline).
“I have not researched this but weren’t there lots of first amendment cases over the years defining what is legal, what is hardcore, and so forth?”
Of course. There have been many cases that the porn industry has won over the years. There’s always that First Amendment thing that throws a monkey wrench into the equation.
There was even one Supreme Court Justice who said, “I can’t define porn but I know it when I see it.” That made me laugh hysterically.
Time for a new tagline...
Trying to draw in the Huckabee crowd it seeks
It's time for federal politicians to get out of the murder business and give the issue back to the states.
The country will continue to fail as long as we continue to kill babies.
pornography is a scourge but if we go down that road of censoring it, where will that stop? If censoring porn was in place today this dictator and chief would have outlawed the Bible.
I read the article. They made pornography a part of the platform in 1992 and look how that turned out. This is going to turn off millions of so called moderate and independent voters who do not want to lose their Internet porn. Would have been better to just quietly start pushing for more stringent enforcement of the laws after the election.
So, again, they shot themselves in the foot.
This is my rifle.
This is my gun.
This is for fighting.
This is for fun.
I'll know it when I see it.
Yep. First abortion, now this. It isn't so much that these aren't important issues, but it serves to focus away from 0bama's principal vulnerability, which is the economy, and his secondary one in foreign policy.
Lest this take on an importance it doesn't deserve, we must recall the prominence given in the Democratic convention early meetings to Muslim and homosexual activism - first round of meetings IIRC. These may or may not turn up as platform planks but are lip service to the interested parties.
The difference between the two party platforms is one of media focus - partisan media will tend to emphasize the one that is to the advantage of their own side and dismiss criticism of those that are not. I would encourage people passionate about the issue of porn that it is extremely unlikely that anyone at the RNC shares that passion or is likely to pursue the matter very far, but one may be certain that it will be presented in the media as a deadly threat to freedom of speech. That's how politics is these days. One may avoid this by refusing to address the issue altogether but that places the Republican platform at the mercy of media approval. It must, therefore, be addressed, however insincerely.
That's why these early planks are thrown out there as they are. The ones on the Democrat side will be ignored, the ones on the Republican side will be hyperbolized. That's what happens when the media are so heavily biased.
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