This Year, I’m Thankful for the End of the GOP’s War on Porn… Right?

PLYMOUTH’S ROCK – It’s Thanksgiving again, a time when people are encouraged to recite things for which they are thankful, a tradition which works out nicely for lazy-ass writers who can’t be bothered with dreaming up original ideas for their holiday posts.

It’s no good to simply spit out a random selection of things for which I’m thankful, though. If I did that, I’d only feel compelled to explain why psilocybin makes the list, but dimethyltryptamine doesn’t, or wind up in a fierce debate with some unhinged fan of Manhattan clam chowder.

Since even in the laziest of cliché holiday-theme posts some limitation of the scope of one’s thankfulness is appropriate, I’m going to stick to porn-related-things for which I’m most thankful. This year, there’s even a clear frontrunner which stands out in the crowd, a single bit of adult industry-related news which calls for full-throated celebration.

I’m speaking, of course, of the news that the Republican party has given up on anti-porn politics.

As Tim Alberta, the author of that Politico piece I just linked to, sees things, it’s a shame the GOP has given up the porn fight, because “If ever there were a national dialogue needed about porn – if ever there were a moment for some opportunistic politician to make a cause of it – the time would be now.”

“Instead, the battlefield has been deserted,” Alberta writes.

I’m very pleased to hear this – and a little confused to hear it, too. You see, from where I sit, it sure looks like plenty of republican politicians (and more than a few democrats) are still faithfully manning the porn-battle stations.

Then again, I do drink/smoke/huff/snort a lot – so maybe I just imagined the part where a bunch of different states have passed resolutions declaring porn a public health hazard. I was likely hallucinating when I thought I’d read about a guy who has repeatedly tried to marry his laptop successfully getting multiple states to consider legislation he cooked up.

I must have again taken leave of my senses when I imagined there were two anti-porn bills under consideration in Illinois, or had that bizarre vision about Utah weighing the possibility of bringing back their much-mocked “porn ombudsman” office.

Speaking of Utah, I seem to have had several porn-politics delusions about the Beehive State, because in addition to the porn ombudsman thing, I could swear they were the innovators of the porn/public health crisis resolution craze AND came up with a law under which people can sue pornographers for causing psychological harm to minors.

Anyway, I’m glad Alberta has straightened me out, because if you work in the adult industry and you become convinced that state legislatures around the country are passing resolutions and laws aimed at terming the adult industry the source of a public health crisis, you could end up with the mistaken impression the GOP’s decency crusade continues.

Hell, the next thing you know, you might even manage to persuade yourself that the sitting President, himself a Republican (albeit of the pussy-grabbing variety), had signed a pledge to “aggressively enforce” the nation’s obscenity laws.