TOPEKA — The Kansas Senate on Tuesday voted to condemn pornography, calling it "a public health hazard that leads to a broad spectrum of individual and public health impacts and societal harms.”
State senators passed a resolution, 35-4, after little debate, according to the Kansas City Star. The resolution comes a year after the House approved a similar measure.
Kansas now joins Utah, Virginia and South Dakota with similar declarations. Florida is contemplating a like-minded piece of legislation in that state.
Critics of Kansas’ declaration pointed at the big elephant in the room — the need for such a measure.
“The creation of a hazard where one does not exist could funnel precious funding toward what is indeed not a health crisis, when we really need those dollars for true health crises,” said state Sen. David Haley, one of four who voted against the resolution.
And other critics also pointed to what they believe is “junk science” that is spelled out in the piece of legislation, drawing misleading and false conclusions about porn. Cited in the study were:
- A Barna Group study in 2016, which is incorporated in the resolution claims 27 percent of millennials, aged 25 to 30, reporting that they first viewed pornography before puberty.
- A study by the Protection Project Journal of Human Rights and Civil Society in 2012 that said “pornography equates violence towards women and children with sex, and equates pain with pleasure, which increases child sexual abuse and child pornography and the demand for sex trafficking and prostitution.”
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