BOISE, Idaho—On the same day that the Florida state House of Representatives passed a resolution officially declaring porn a “public health risk,” the Idaho state legislature also introduced a resolution to condemn the alleged—and widely debunked—threat to public health posed by porn.
The vote by the House makes Florida the fifth state to pass a similar resolution linking porn to public health threats, following Utah, South Dakota, Virginia and, most recently, Kansas. Now Idaho aims to become the sixth state to put the legislative seal of approval on a warning about porn’s supposedly deleterious health effects.
“Families are torn apart because of the proliferation of this material,” said Idaho state representative Lance Clow, a Republican (pictured in inset above). “Our communities, state and nation are being harmed at an epidemic rate.”
But a research paper published just five days ago in the peer-reviewed academic journal Porn Studies found no empirical evidence of a link between such harms and the production or consumption of pornography. In fact, the study authored by clinical psychologist David J. Ley, dismissed studies cited by states to support claims of porn’s health risks as “pseudoscience.”
“Using pornography can negatively impact brain development and functioning, contribute to emotional and medical illnesses and lead to difficulty in forming or maintaining intimate relationships, as well as create harmful sexual behaviors and addiction,” the Idaho resolution states—all claims heavily disputed or debunked by research studies.
Nonetheless, Idaho’s House State Affairs Committee overwhelmingly approved the resolution, setting it up for a full debate and vote on the state’s House floor. The Idaho state House is overwhelmingly Republican, with 59 GOP members to just 10 Democrats.
The Florida House resolution passed on the same day that legislators there voted down a motion to even consider debating a ban on assault weapons—less than a week after 15 high school students and two adults were slain by a gunman wielding an assault rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, outside of Miami.
A group of students who survived the shooting were in attendance as the heavily Republican Florida House voted the motion down.
Orlando Democrat Carlos Smith challenged the House vote on the anti-porn bill, asking the bill’s sponsor, Ross Spano, why he considered porn a public health risk, but did not feel the same about assault weapons. But House Speaker pro tempore Jeanette Nuñez cut off Smith’s questions.
The Florida resolution had originally declared porn a “public health crisis,” but Spano rewrote the language prior to the vote to describe porn as a “public health risk.” A Florida Senate version of the resolution, however, has retained the “health crisis” language.
