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 The resolution declares pornography an epidemic that normalizes
violence against women and children and makes men less likely to
want to get married.
It was signed by Republican Governor Gary Herbert after being passed
by the Republican-led legislature in the conservative and heavily
Mormon state with the support of the Utah Coalition Against
Pornography, backed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints.
"The volume of pornography in our society is staggering," Herbert
said at a bill-signing ceremony in Salt Lake City, Utah's capital.
"I want to protect our families and our young people."
Supporters said Utah's moves would help combat human trafficking,
pornography addiction and rape.
The resolution calls on the state legislature to research the impact
of pornography and invest in education and efforts to prevent its
production and use. It declares pornography "a public health hazard
leading to a broad spectrum of individual and public health impacts
and societal harms."
Herbert also signed a bill requiring technicians who find child
pornography while working on someone's computer to report it, making
it a misdemeanor for them to fail to do so.
At the signing ceremony, anti-pornography activist Jennifer Brown
said viewing pornography derails healthy emotional and physical
development in children and adolescents and fosters addiction to it.
She called the pornography industry an "empire of destruction"
driven by financial greed.
The Free Speech Coalition, an industry association representing
adult entertainment producers, called the public health hazard
designation an "old-fashioned morals bill" that was not grounded in
science.
"We should live in a society where sexuality is spoken about openly,
and discussed in nuanced and educated ways, not stigmatized," Free
Speech Coalition spokesman Mike Stable said.
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Elder Jeffrey Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, one of
the Mormon Church's governing bodies, last month delivered the
keynote address to the anti-pornography coalition's annual meeting,
calling pornography a plague that tears the moral fabric of society.
A 2009 study by Harvard Business School professor Benjamin Edelman
showed that Utah had the highest per-capita rate of purchasing
online adult-entertainment subscriptions in the United States.
Since the study was released, some Utah groups, including the
website FairMormon.org, have disputed its results and questioned its
methodology.
(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Editing by
Will Dunham)
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