Pledging to enforce obscenity laws and support filtering software is not the same thing

[redqueen]

as 'making porn illegal'.

Not that anyone on this board would be stupid enough for Romney for any reason, but there is no need to be dishonest to recognize that that is the (obvious) case.

http://www.antipornmen.org/

The truth of the matter is that no matter what they say no one in DC wants to do anything about this, there is WAY too much money to be made.

So worry not, the most degrading types of porn (along with the much less popular 'harmless' kind) will be only a few clicks away for the forseeable future.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/garden/when-children-see-internet-pornography.html

[TheWraith]

1. Yes, it is.

It's a pledge to exploit the law to tell people "you're not allowed to see that, and if you try we'll charge you with a crime." It's handing weapons to people who want to suppress free choice. Use of gradations and slippery slopes is how anyone attempts to ban anything when they would face blowback over simply saying it: it's the equivalent of trying to say "well, we're not against alcohol, just those dangerous refined spirits."

[redqueen]

2. No, it isn't, any more than supporting gun laws is 'taking away all your guns'

[cthulu2016]

3. The mind recoils from this OP

All of our obscenity laws are unconstitutional monstrosities maintained only by the idiocy of the Supreme Court in de-fanging obscenity in the 1970s while bowing to political pressure to not remove it entirely as a philosophical category.

An announced intent to prosecute material that is not obscene under Miller v. California (because nothing is if you apply the whole standard) is an announced intent to gain convictions from jurors that cannot or will not understand the legal standards involved.

Since obscenity is impossible to define (under existing SCOTUS precedent) then any material whatsoever that displays genitalia, including drawing and paintings, can be prosecuted at the sole discretion (aka "whim&quot of the government. Any material. ANY. MATERIAL. Genitalia are the only non-subjective element of the "crime."

It is dire harassment via defective (and facially unconstitutional) criminal law and would land a lot of people in prison for constitutionally protected material. And shock Hollywood into never featuring full frontal nudity in a movie ever again. (Which is the real point of this kind of shit.)

Such politically motivated prosecutions bankrupt any company or person they are leveled against. Yes, they will win on appeal ten years later if they haven't committed suicide yet, but that is not the point of such government action. It is to ruin and confiscate while knowing there is no legitimate legal basis for the action.

When someone promises to do such a thing it is not trivial or dismissible.

If you are minimizing this by falling back on the nicety that this new prohibition would be administrative rather than legislative then my mind recoils.

And, for the record, child pornography laws do not rely on the antiquated legal concept of obscenity. (Child pornography is illegal without having to be found obscene.) So we are talking about adult material here.

[redqueen]

4. I am minimizing it by saying *it will never happen*.

As I said, the money is all that matters.

Romney doesn't get money from planned parenthood. He does get money from pornographers. These pledges are meaningless fluff thrown to religious types.