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Pornographic Politics: Santorum Pledges To Prosecute The Country Into a Better Moral State

Rick Santorum is continuing his faith-based campaign with a pledge to wipe out pornography in his Administration. The problem is that pornography is lawful and now a multi-billion dollar industry. It is obscenity that can be criminalized, but what is obscene remains exceptionally vague and ill-defined. Indeed, many may find parts of this presidential campaign to border on the obscene.

Santorum has proclaimed “The Obama Administration has turned a blind eye to those who wish to preserve our culture from the scourge of pornography and has refused to enforce obscenity laws.” He pledges that he will “vigorously” enforce laws that “prohibit distribution of hardcore (obscene) pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite TV, on hotel/motel TV, in retail shops and through the mail or by common carrier.”

What constitutes obscenity remains maddeningly vague. Indeed, many find laughable Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s test for pornography in his concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964): “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.”

Santorum shows the dangers of the fluid test described by Stewart. What Santorum would consider obscene is obviously far greater than millions of Americans who either work or patronize porn sites. Federal courts are reluctant to define movies or pictures as obscene based on such different opinions in society. For that reason, Santorum’s view of the standard appears to fall well outside of the accepted view of the case law. Prohibitions have focused on areas like child pornography, snuff films, and animal abuse. Sexual films of consenting adults that are watched by consenting adults are generally presumed to be pornographic but not obscene. The Court has also emphasized the difficulty in determining what is obscene and what is artistic or literary. For many years, great novels were defined as obscene under the community standards that Santorum appears to favor.

However, the Supreme Court’s poorly conceived precedent in the area has left the standard of obscenity ill-defined — creating an opening for someone like Santorum to seek to limit what adults can view as part of new crackdown on immoral lifestyles and values.

Santorum’s suggestion of a crackdown, however, ignores the fact that this material is widely available on the Internet with thousands of foreign sites. An attempt to prosecute standard pornography would result in bizarrely uneven enforcement. It would also attempt to criminalize an industry that is supported by millions of Americans much as prohibition sought to criminalize alcohol consumption. The difference is that today’s “speakeasies” are found in virtual space on the Internet. He may find that Wall Street would be a bit peeved with the attempt to eradicate an over $12 billion a year industry.

I would bet against such an expanded effort in the courts if it targeted explicit sexual acts between consenting adults. Such a crackdown was attempted under Ed Meese in the Reagan Administration with limited lasting effect.

Ironically, the more promising avenue for regulation would not be to try to widen obscenity laws but to extend prostitution laws. There has always been an odd contradiction in criminalizing prostitution between consenting adults while allowing the same person to accept money to have sex before millions. For libertarians, the prohibition on prostitution by consenting adults is a denial of individual choice and freedom. I oppose laws that criminalize such personal choices on morality grounds. However, if prostitution laws are valid, it would seem easier to extend them to sex for money in pornographic settings. I would argue against such laws on constitutional grounds, but I would likely be in the minority. I believe that such films have first amendment protection beyond the privacy protections afforded to consenting adults. (Privacy itself is hard to maintain when you are filming sexual encounters for millions to view.).

Regardless of the approach taken by Santorum, what he is advocating is a return to the enforcement of morality codes through criminal prosecution. It would threaten tens of millions of adults to conform their conduct to the moral dictates of Santorum and his followers. It is the type of state-imposed morality that we have criticized in other nations. Indeed, a Santorum Administration might want to consider one more commission — a favorite reaction of Washington in appeasing the public. He could call it the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

Source: Daily Caller

74 thoughts on “Pornographic Politics: Santorum Pledges To Prosecute The Country Into a Better Moral State”

  2. SwM,
    Thanks for the nightmare scenario with Palin at the conventions
    Caused me to return to how it could have been with a McCain win in 2008.
    How long would McCain before someone would have eliminated him, and we’d have a Palin president—thanks to certain unnamed organizations help.
    The mind boggles.
    She might have even nuked the USA by this time. “California is not America”, she says.

  3. Elaine M.
    “Maybe Rick has plans to drape statues in fabric in our country’s capital a la John Ashcroft.”

    No, they will be moved to storage, and replaced by ones taken from Disneyland (or your suggestion?).

  4. Raff and Frankly,
    just got here, late as usual, but if you see this.

    F.
    why do, as I’ve said before, do we need to loan “demon” terms which cast aspersions on the, in this case, Talibans, and indirectly on muslims? That may not have been your intentions pro or con, one way or another, but I take the opportunity to publish my take.

    Raff,
    Go back to the new email account with WordPress and add the same icon you registered with the other email. Should do the trick. Changing icons is easy even for an existing email address. Even old man me can do it.

  6. Sanatorium may be onto something with this prosecuting obscenity idea.

    I think red slime in hamburger is obscene. And how about foreclosing on a family home with fraudulent documents. That seems obscene to me, too.

    What about you? Have you seen any obscenity that ought to be prosecuted recently?

    As for pornography, I am pleased to report that I still recognize it when I see it.

  9. How about he start his prosecutions with pedophile priests, war criminals, war profiteers, mortgage and bank fraud, torturers, cops who kill unarmed civilians, crooked politicians, the supreme court justices who refuse to uphold the constitution, christians who kill abortion doctors.

  11. I have always been pro pornography, with certain exceptions and I believe people against it have sexual issues. However, I have been waiting for the appropriate chance to show this, since it perfectly applies to Santorum:

  12. Ironically, the more promising avenue for regulation would not be to try to widen obscenity laws but to extend prostitution laws.
    ———————————-
    I am all for this…course I stil think the modus operandi of many non-sexual things here in th good old not-so-free USA are BOTH obscene AND
    prostitutal … (is that a word????…I think it’s a word….)

  14. Elaine M: “Maybe Rick has plans to drape statues in fabric in our country’s capital a la John Ashcroft.”

    ———-

    We should be so lucky that he would only cover them. He may well prefer a more permanent solution along the lines of the Bamiyan Buddhas

    “Afghan Taliban Begin Destruction of Ancient Buddha Statues”

    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0301-04.htm

  15. Master of Morality….Listing to your speeches and having the thoughts that you might win more delegates is porn in my mind…..so stop now….

  16. I’ll bet Rick Santorum fantasies and yearns for the good old days of
    the puritans and pillories.

  17. Oro Lee I have not seen one but I think the first one was spotted outside DC. The picture has gone viral. I think I need to get a pro Obama sticker on to counteract these people although one of my friends that put one on had her car keyed recently.

  18. Yeah, Ricky, if you’re interested in “prosecuting the country into a better moral state”, why not start by prosecuting people who committed war crimes, treason and violated the Constitution? If you knew anything about the law, the Rule of Law or the Constitution, that would be a far better place to start bringing ethical behavior back into the public arena. Or like most theocrats is your moral outrage selective when it comes to things like torture and war? Also, see the meaning of the word “futile”. As Onlooker alludes to, a “war” against human nature cannot be “won” by prohibition. It might be mitigated by education though. You apparently don’t understand human nature very well, Ricky. Then again, you’re an advocate of teaching creationism as if it were science; indicating that you really don’t know crap about education either.

    That’s quite a Catch-22 you’ve got there.

  19. They kicked his family out of Italy for boasting about their name: Santo Rum or in English: Sainted Rum. The family back in Italy are all communist. So this drunk communist wants to impose his notion of Catholic morality on the rest of us. I bet he could not recite the Ten Commandments.

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