Gene sez: "Can't say as I didn't warn Bridgett Kerkove about Utah a couple of weeks ago when she said she was going there to have her breasts enlarged. Now comes the story that Utah intends on being the first state in the nation to install a "Porn Czar". Forget an energy czar to ride gherd on runaway prices at the gas tank.
However, a drive through Utah to find cheap gasoline will inevitably introduce motorists to billboards saying something like: "Real Men Don't Use Pornography." This is a slogan that greeted motorists on a billboard as they arrived in Utah from Wyoming on Interstate 80, the massive letters printed across the portraits of several clean-cut men. The billboard is gone now, but Utah's governor was expected to sign into law a bill giving the state the country's first pornography czar.
Although this czar will have little prosecutorial power, and no jurisdiction over the Internet or cable television, he or she will draft a new state definition of obscenity, help local governments "restrict, suppress or eliminate" pornography and provide information "about the dangers of obscenity."
Lawmakers have already have passed bills banning Playboy from prisons and are preventing minors from viewing pornographic Web sites at public libraries. Derspite an apparent need for a czar, porn is far from a thriving industry in Utah. A search through the yellow pages turns up a few listings for adult videos, and the adult bookstore most widely advertised in Salt Lake City is an hour away, in Evanston, Wyo.
"The irony of all this is that there have not been that many pornography cases lately," said Carol Gnade, director of the Utah chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "This seems to be a solution without a problem."
Republican state Rep. Evan L. Olsen, who sponsored the legislation, said his constituents asked him about the state's obscenity standards after discovering their children surfing for cybersex.
"I felt there's a lot of people who wanted to do something but didn't know where to turn," Olsen said. The legislation sets aside $75,000 next year and suggests spending $150,000 in future years to hire a czar to handle obscenity and pornography complaints.
"It's time to say what's happening here," said Gayle Ruzicka, chairwoman of Utah's chapter of the conservative Eagle Forum. "Pornography has suddenly become a huge, huge business -- beyond anything we ever imagined -- and it's as addictive as drugs. People are asking for help."
Utah is the first state to name a general porn czar.
