While soldiers continued to die in Iraq last week, President Bush exercised his power and took bold steps to ensure that people of this great nation, the United States of America, are protected from the evils of the world.
He didn’t end American involvement in Iraq; instead, Bush declared it “Protection from Pornography Week,” via presidential proclamation. Bravo.
In continuing attempts to use his office as a pedestal for preaching the high ground of his personal moral definitions, Bush committed in his proclamation for the anti-porn week ” … to take steps to confront the dangers of pornography,” which he said “can have debilitating effects on communities, marriages, families and children.”
Much of the proclamation focused on child pornography and steps the Bush administration has taken to combat it, including Department of Homeland Security efforts in “Operation Predator” to “identify child predators, rescue children depicted in child pornography and persecute those responsible for making and distributing child pornography.”
We agree with this, and we commend those efforts. But while child pornography is obviously harmful to and exploitive of children and, as a result, very illegal — and rightfully so — we find it hard to believe that the ’70s classic “Debbie Does Dallas” is going to break up any marriages or terrorize any communities.
Unfortunately, Bush didn’t narrow his focus solely to child pornography in his proclamation, choosing instead to condemn legitimate forms of sexual expression protected under the First Amendment. Only after declaring that all pornography has “debilitating effects” did Bush explain that “the effects of pornography are particularly pernicious with respect to children.”
Sure, we acknowledge that children can be harmed by porn exploitation and that curbing child pornography is a noble and legitimate goal for the federal government. Declaring a day to protest all pornography and creating a misleading link between exploiting children and catching the newest “Girls Gone Wild On Campus” on widescreen, however, is not.
Moreover, we challenge Bush to find one shred of reliable scientific evidence that directly links pornography to “debilitating effects” on marriages, families or communities. Say, for instance, a higher propensity for broken marriages. Or that pornography directly leads to worse communities, a higher crime rate or more unemployment. We’re guessing he won’t find it. But then again, evidence isn’t something much needed when morality is the driving policy.
Bush’s rhetoric toward all pornography hurts the administration’s successful efforts to rid the United States of child pornography. The subtle comparison Bush draws between child pornography and other pornography is, truthfully, insulting to those who lawfully use porn in the inviolate private of their own homes.