US legislator wants porn declared a public health crisis

Salt Lake City: A state senator in the predominantly Mormon state of Utah wants to declare pornography a public health crisis, echoing an argument made by many conservative

religious groups as porn becomes more accessible on

smartphones and tablets. Republican Sen. Todd Weiler, a Mormon, contends children are being exposed at young ages to pornography, leading them

to engage in riskier sexual behavior. He has said recent

research from the United Kingdom found that people who compulsively view porn showed similar brain activity as seen in drug addicts. Weiler's proposal wouldn't regulate or ban anything, but it has attracted attention, including being debated on talk show "The

View." He said he's been "mocked internationally" but feels it's triggered an important conversation. "It's not just a kooky thing that some, you know, politician from Mormon

Utah came up with," Weiler said. "When I was a kid, people

might sneak a Playboy magazine and look at it. Now, you've got all kinds of horrible, graphic images that are available to anyone with an Internet connection one or two clicks away." Four Republicans and one Democrat on a Utah Senate health committee agreed with Weiler and endorsed the resolution Friday afternoon in Salt

Lake City after an hour- long meeting where they heard from anti- pornography activists, a marriage therapist and residents who said they or loved ones struggled with pornography addictions. More than half

of Utah's 3 million residents belong to The Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter- day Saints, among religions in recent years that have worked to shed light

on what they consider the harms of pornography. Here, the cultural aversion to scantily

dressed women is evident. Magazines or TV commercials featuring women wearing lowcut shirts or bikinis are considered by some to be soft pornography, and lingerie catalogs have been called “gateway porn.”