Could Romney Ban Pornography? Yes!

There’s a lot of controversy surrounding presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He refuses to release his tax returns, has a history of impersonating police officers in college, and his social conservatism is making left-wingers angry.

But put all that aside for a minute. How would your view of Mitt Romney change if he decided to ban pornography?

In 2007, Romney made controversial remarks about putting a “porn filter” on computers while he was campaigning to be 2008’s presidential candidate. The speech starts off fairly normally: Romney says that he would make sure retailers couldn’t sell adult video games to children. Most people agree that selling adult video games to children is bad.

However, seconds later, Romney shows how clueless he is about computer technology when he states that he wants “every new computer sold in this country after I’m president has installed on it a filter to block all pornography.”

Let’s make one thing clear: he’s doing this for the kids. He doesn’t want to completely ban pornography for every American. Instead, he wants that magical porn filter to be turned on by any parents who don’t want their kids to see porn.

The full video 45 second video can be seen here:

According to political experts, this is just the tip of Romney’s anti-porn iceberg. If elected president, he plans to “go after porn peddlers with a pitchfork”, according to an article by TechCrunch. In other words, he plans to enforce obscenity laws to their maximum extent.

And here’s the real kicker: porn is not protected by the First Amendment. This was demonstrated in Miller v. California (1973). During that case, the Supreme Court ruled that pornography must conform to “community standards.” In other words, porn that could offend someone could be declared illegal and prosecuted under the law.

This is the first thing that comes up when you search for "Romney porn" (seriously)

In spite of that Supreme Court declaration, porn producers have rarely been prosecuted under obscenity laws. Even producers of the more ‘extreme’ types of pornography, including rape, BDSM, and other fetishes, have been left mostly unprosecuted. Apparently, this has made Romney very angry.

So if you’re asking yourself whether or not Mitt Romney could ban pornography, the answer is a definite YES. He could enforce obscenity laws to a point where porn producers find it difficult or risky to make pornography. Since porn must legally conform to “community standards” (according to the 1973 Supreme Court ruling), an argument could be made that most porn is against community standards.

In most cases, a presidential candidate’s religious views shouldn’t have an impact on an election. But in this case, it’s important to note that Mitt Romney is Mormon, and in Mormonism, pornography (among other things) is strictly forbidden.

Romney should realize that millions of healthy men and women in America view porn on a regular basis. In addition, porn drives billions of dollars into the U.S. economy and is one of the country’s largest exports. I understand that sticking to religious and personal values is important, but Mitt Romney could have lost millions of votes because of this issue.

The lesson from all this? If you like watching naked people have sex with each other on the internet, vote Obama.

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