“Man was made in God’s image - inherently good, but mortally flawed. Pornography does not have the power to destroy it. It is a symptom of the mortal condtion of man, tied to and dependent on the wants and needs of mortal flesh. It is something to be acknowleged as potentially destructive, and dealt with as any gluttony that can lead to addiction. It is not some omnipotent monster that we are powerless to do anything about.”
I like what you are saying here and I tend to agree with you.
So, now I am curious, if you are up for some healthy, non-emotional debate, about whether or not you think pornography should be protected by the first amendment. If pornography can, in fact, contribute to the decay of society and promote things such as rape and pedophilia, then it can be tantamount to shouting “ fire” in the proverbial crowded theater.
(I am not certain, however, if porn can be clearly targeted as the cause in those situations. Some studies show that rape rates decline when porn is readily available, so who’s to say that porn promotes evil?)
The question has strayed far from the thread, but I think it is an interesting one. I would like to hear your thoughts on it.
I know you can't change human nature. Anyone who thinks they're going to force everyone into some idealized notion of moral certitude they've imagined existed in days gone by will be sorely disappointed in the results.
See my #110. It is almost unquestionable that easier access to porn increases the sexualization level in a society. There are both positive and negative effects that come along with this. That is why I think that all porn sites should be required to move to .xxx domains and that all reasonable attempts should be made to keep it out of the hands of impressionable children.
I do think that we should distinguish magazines like Playboy from some of the more distasteful and misogynistic porn that is freely available on the internet these days.