Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum raised a few eyebrows last week, with reports that he intends to go after pornography if elected. As the former senator sees it, America is "suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography," adding that a Santorum administration would target porn distribution online, on cable television, and in hotel rooms.
Because his campaign made this an issue, Santorum was pressed on this issue during a couple of Sunday-show appearances yesterday. Most of his responses were pretty predictable: on CNN, he criticized the Obama administration because it "has not put a priority on prosecuting" Bush-era porn cases.
But Santorum went a little further when talking to ABC.
"[O]bviously Congress, in its wisdom, understood that hard-core pornography is very damaging, particularly to young people, and that exposure on the Internet can be very damaging, and of course it's very damaging to a lot of folks."
Santorum isn't just talking about obscenity laws or illegal content involving children; he's referring to an intended crackdown on pornography because he believes the content itself is "very damaging."
The candidate, in other words, wants to use the power of the executive branch to limit access to adult materials because he thinks porn, like contraception, is bad for you.
To reiterate a point from last week, since Americans clearly have no appetite for adult content online or on television, this will no doubt help deliver millions of votes to the Santorum campaign.