Utah declares pornography a public health hazard

Governor Gary Herbert signed a resolution declaring pornography as a public health crisis, making Utah the first state to recognize it as such.

S.C.R. 9 Concurrent Resolution on the Public Health Crisis reads in part: "This resolution recognizes that pornography is a public health hazard leading to a broad spectrum of individual and public health impacts and societal harms; and recognizes the need for education, prevention, research, and policy change at the community and societal level in order to address the pornography epidemic that is harming the citizens of Utah and the nation."

The resolution also lists down the numerous hazards brought about by porn, such as hypersexualization of teens, treating of women as commodities, making violence and abuse seem normal, among others. It also mentions that porn is potentially biologically addictive.

Many are cheering for this move, primarily the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, a non-profit organization that Christian Today says helped write the resolution.

NCOSE executive director Dawn Hawkins said in a statement that, in light of scientific and social research, the harms brought about by pornography are now being seen more clearly.

Pornography has become "ubiquitous and caused so much harm that it's really beyond the individual or the individual family to tackle alone," said Dani Bianculli, executive director of NCOSE's law centre, as quoted by Christian Today. "So we really want to hold broader influences accountable. We can draw attention to this problem, and hopefully we can get multiple people involved."

There are those, however, who think that the move is prompted by religious convervatism. According to The Christian Science Monitor, critics reportedly include medical practitioners, activists for the First Amendment, and advocates of the LGBT community.

But for those like Gail Dines, founder and president of Culture Reframed and a professor of sociology and women's studies at Wheelock College in Boston, the government of Utah is "redefining pornography not as a moral issue, but as a harms-based issue." She agrees that there needs to be a public health approach considering that porn is now being used as a tool for sex eduction and that hardcore porn is now considered mainstream.

"The beauty of a public-health approach is that it causes a paradigm shift," Dines said.

While scientific research is the basis for the resolution, Christians are just as appreciative of it.

Russell Moore, Southern Baptist ethicist, agreed with Utah in declaring porn as a health hazard, even calling it a cultural epidemic that affects that just American culture but also evangelical churches. He said that porn deceives both men and women about "love, sex and what it means to be a person," and "the church should be on the forefront of proclaiming the grace and freedom found in the Gospel."

Meanwhile, Christian counselor Eddie Capparucci of XXX Church, an online ministry trying to help people who are addicted pornography, said that those who try to overcome their addiction to porn but find themselves relapsing might not have addressed in full the root cause of the problem.

"At the heart of all addictions is emotional pain," Capparucci said.

He explained that addictive behaviours are used to distract a person from the hurt they feel. However, once the "high" has worn off, they find themselves back to square one.