Sponsored by the Republican Senator Todd Weiler, Senate Concurrent Resolution 9 seeks to use England’s model of having the default Internet pornography-free, and requiring users to opt-in to view explicit content, by classifying the material as a public health crisis, similar to Ebola or Zika.
"Everything in the resolution is supported by science and research,” Weiler claimed to MercatorNet. “It's not just a kooky thing that some politician from Mormon Utah came up with. It's bigger than that."
The Mormon senator believes that pornography is causing divorce, subverting youth, and “undermining the family.” He based his resolution on research gleaned from a Congressional Symposium on the topic, held last year in Washington, DC.
At that event, Cordelia Anderson, an anti-pornography activist from Minnesota, asserted, “Various studies document the harms of viewing pornography including sexually aggressive behavior in adults and youth, sexually reactive behaviors in youth, desensitization to others in sexual situations, rape supportive attitudes, arousal to increasingly violent content, increased levels of sexual insecurities, and difficulties with intimacy or sexual functioning such as erectile dysfunction in males.”
The average age for first-time porn viewers online is purported to be about nine years old, according to Weiler. The senator explained that the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, a Judeo-Christian anti-porn group funded, in part, by the federal government, assures him that there are 10 to 15 states that will follow Utah’s lead, should the resolution pass.
“Within a few clicks they can see some of the most vile and disgusting images that the mind can even imagine,” Weiler declared, speaking to the Standard Examiner. “For us to pretend that this is having no impact on our values and our society and culture — and the brain development of our adolescents — is very naive.”
The resolution has the support of Utah Governor and Mormon Republican Gary Herbert. At a committee hearing on the resolution at the beginning of the month, Senator Allen Christensen, also a Republican and a Mormon, asked if anyone was “brave enough to speak out against the resolution,” but not a single person raised their hands.
