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.”
Like abortion, it was a state issue. The Supreme Court decided our values for us and made the problem.
Give it back to the states.
A huge amount of husbands and wives watch porn together to spicen things up...liberals and conservative both..maybe even more conservatives as another poster pointed out in his link. I would guess more husbands and wives watch porn together than don't...maybe not all the time but they do at times. BTW Women are some of the largest growing viewers of porn today. Not all porn is the same ..there is quite a bit of "sensual" porn out there for couples that has helped numerous marriages survive the boredom/stagnation.
While there is still porn out there that degrades women/some "slavery" going on, the vast majority made today is "amateur" porn...that is porn that couples make together and post online because that is how they get their kicks.
...and Donna I bet there is a significant amount of women who tell you to your face porn is bad but they go home and watch it with their hubby. or themselves.
Don't let the gov't start telling us watch to watch or not..that will lead to a slippery slope of banning everything...maybe even the Bible.
Don't flame me I'm just giving you the fact about porn..whether you want to keep your head in the sand and say good conservative men and women don't watch it..that it is only something "liberals" do then well you can believe what you want. It's up to each person to decide whether it is right for them or not..not the gov't to decide(as long as it is not hurting anyone)
Though maybe the porn addicts couldn't tear themselves away to got and vote anyway.
Conservatives want the federal government out of our business because as you can see from both issues, the federal government makes a mess and kills babies.
If you want to use porn, move to a state that believes as you do. Leave the rest of us in peace.
Stop forcing your way of life on others.
> I don’t where you got this from.
I get it from the literal translation of the “No Exceptions” rule.
...and if you don't want to watch it then don't. No one is coming into your house and forcing you to watch porn.
This is a problem with many conservatives..they want the gov't small on things but large on things in other areas. Gov't should be small across the board and as little influence in our lives as possible.
Again dangerous slope when the gov't is deciding...
Neither is forcing a rape victim to carry a rapists child.
I endorse what you say. However, there are such "social ideologues" on FR that don't. I was on a thread recently with one and I posed this situation. Say that there is an 11-year-old girl who is raped and impregnated. Since it is biologically possible (I think) for a child that age to carry a pregnancy to term, should not she be offered an abortion? My correspondent said "No!"
What do you say to such people? I don't know.
I believe the pornography on network television should be banned. Why must our children be exposed to commercials discussing erectile dysfunction and four hour erections? How did every previous generation get by without such filth?
I know a 12-year-old who was forced by her parents to get an abortion. She intentionally got pregnant again a year later to try to make it right.
I think porn can be very damaging to ones self. I think the ones dealing in {producing} Kiddie Porn should be jailed for life. But I will never support the violation of everyones rights and privacy to achieve that. The GOP once again is The Stupid Party.
Evidently they also see this as some sort of concession in their mind to the social conservatives. It's a bad deal with the devil. No thanks GOP. I'll see your illicit motives and raise you an Independent vote for POTUS this election.
The problem with these issues is the FACT that we are at once in a dilemma where the right to stay alive, for the gestating new human being is to be weighed against the right to stay alive of the female in whose body the alive new human is growing to birth age. A physician of moral character, when presented with a forced pregnancy will be considering the fate of two patients caught in a single problem, if the female is seeking an abortion. Any human with good moral character will try to sift the problem down to can both beings be saved since both are alive human beings! If not, then the treating physician will present the viable options to the older patient. The variables will include how far from birth age is the unborn human; how much risk is there in continuing the pregnancy to birth; can the unborn be brought into the air world without killing either being; is there a point not yet reached when the alive unborn will be to some degree aware? Things like that are part of the reasoning process.
Someday in the not distant future the attending physician will be able to stop the pregnancy without endangering the mother and then shifting life support to artifical means AT ANY stage in gestation after imp[lantation. An ectopic pregnancy will be ended and the alive little one transferred to an artifical womb for the remainder of his or her gestational period.
The Japanese had kept a goat fetus alive to term for more than seventeen weeks, and that was a decade ago or more. What we should be focused upon is how do we save both alive humans reagrdless of how the younger came into to existence. Arguing over exceptions is the devils way to argue you into submission to the wrong direction. It is a hallmark of leftist/progressive reasoning.
Shirley you jest ... this is brought up to appeal to women/mothers/grandmothers. Who is being demeaned with porn? ... Now stick to the largest category ... women are being demeaned, of course. So this plank appeals to a values based platform where the demeaning of women and children is acknowledged as wrong and the pubbies want women to see that pubbies do not support or condone such wrongness toward women and children.
I’m not about to get involved in a generalized discussion on abortion, a topic that frankly does not much interest me, except in a passing manner. I think in most cases it’s wrong, but that’s the extent on my viewpoint.
But I think here YOU are approaching the issue from the wrong perspective. We’re talking about a child here, sir, not a woman with mature views. I would not want to put a child through this experience. First, she’s been raped, now you wish to subject her to all that’s involved in a pregnancy. My God, where are your values?
Many a pioneer eleven year old female started bring children into the world when the frontier was new. There is one such mother in my family History on my Father's side of the family. Happened when one of the brothers who went to Texas took himself a young bride during the wagon train trip. She lived to be 91 and at last count has hundreds of descendants.
You try to have a nice evening, free of irrational spittle, okay?
but some planks are the lightening rods that can shock an election
Morality - that is a social covenant where everyone is respected and protected from harm - is a central tenet to civilization and conservatism. If you and your missus can't spice things up on your own and have to rely on the damage done to others, then you two have a real problem.
We are creating a whole generation of sexual cripples with this out-of-control addiction to pornography.
“obscenity is, however, not protected by the First Amendment.”
Huh? I had to do a double-take and read that twice.
Free speech is free speech, isn’t it?
Also, please define “obscenity”.
I think this is a good thing. It won’t make headline news or be an issue in the election contest but it does show that the GOP is listening (at least sometimes) to conservatives.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.