How does $75,000 a year for starters and all the porn you can watch sound? Sounds like a job description for Utah's proposed porn czar, and ABC News' website has this update.
Says ABC: "There are drug czars, and even education czars. But only Utah has a job opening for a 'porn czar,' charged with defining obscenity, hunting it down, and educating the public about its dangers. While the recently created position of obscenity ombudsman has yet to be filled, critics say the job is symbolic at best and useless at worst. The porn czar will have no legal authority over smut on the Internet or cable television, the two biggest sources of sexually explicit content." According to ABC, Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt signed into law last month a bill that sailed through both houses of the Republican-controlled Legislature and sets aside $75,000 to cover annual salary and expenses for a prosecutor dedicated to ferreting out obscene materials. Next year, supporters say they'll seek twice as much to fund the position. The porn czar's duties will include advising local governments about obscenity law, helping craft local ordinances in compliance with U.S. Supreme Court rulings, and prosecuting violators when necessary.
Although bill sponsor Republican state Rep. Evan L. Olsen admits that Utah doesn't have a bigger porn problem [but notice they're willing to ante up $150,000 for the bureaucratic gesture] than any other state. He says the new position is a response to a growing discomfort with explicit material.
"I felt there's a lot of people who wanted to do something but didn't know where to turn," Olsen told The Associated Press. Utah lawmakers already have passed bills banning Playboy magazine from prisons and preventing minors from viewing pornographic Web sites at public libraries. Supporters of the new porn czar position say localities are struggling with how to apply obscenity laws and prosecute alleged violators, and need guidance.
In a rare obscenity trial near Salt Lake City - the widely publicized Movie Buffs case - a jury failed to convict a video store manager last year for carrying cable-edited versions of X-rated films. Despite the acquittal, the manager was divorced and bankrupt by the trial's end. Utah-based First Amendment attorney Andrew McCullough says that since little, if any, hard-core pornography is sold in the state - except on the Internet and cable television, which are regulated as interstate commerce - any future convictions are also unlikely. For example, an alternative newspaper in Salt Lake City carries advertisements for two merchants of explicit materials - but one's in Nevada and the other in Wyoming.
"It's something they're not going to find," he said, "and if they have found it, they won't successfully prosecute. It's a terrible waste of taxpayers' money." McCullough, who says he will apply for the porn czar position [which of course is a contradiction in terms, he being a First Amendment attorney] believes some Utah politicians have misjudged their constituents, especially Mormons. As the Movie Buffs verdict suggests, he said, "We're not quite as conservative as politicians think we are."
Utah is believed to be the first state to create a general porn czar, though other states investigate child pornography.
