|
Hard-Core Harm: Why You Can't Be Soft on Porn 10/22/2003 By Jan LaRue, Chief Counsel Pornography is hurting you and those you love ... America has become a nation of pay-per-view peeping toms. Voyeurism is an immensely profitable commodity as people spend millions watching other people have sex. And filthy rich pornographers dupe the public with the myth that pornography is harmless and the sex industry is good for the economy.
What they don't want you to know about is the loss column-pornography contributes to anti-social behavior and crime, especially sex crimes; it contaminates public health, destroys marriages and families, defiles religious communities, hinders education and depletes educational resources, increases abortions and taxes, weakens the economy. In neighborhoods afflicted with sex businesses, it destroys the value of houses and drives out legitimate businesses.
Although you may never look at pornography, it is hurting you and those you love in ways you may never have considered. "Even supposing that each of us can, if he wishes, effectively avert the eye and stop the ear (which, in truth, we cannot), what is commonly read and seen and heard and done intrudes upon us all, want it or not." (Paris Adult Theatre I v. Stanton, 413 U.S. 49, 59 (1973).) [more ...]
The CWA Legal Studies Dept. publication, Hard Core Harm, is available for the Web via Adobe Acrobat. The Acrobat Reader is available for free by clicking the button below.

| Printer Friendly Version |