SALT LAKE CITY – There’s a motion afoot in the Utah legislature to remove from its state code language that created an “Obscenity and Pornography Complaints Ombudsman.” The legislature created the office in 2000 to, among other things, “advise citizens and local governments about remedies to address instances of obscenity and pornography in their communities.”
The state tapped an attorney named Paula Houston to fill the position, but the office of the obscenity ombudsman didn’t last long. It was shut down in 2003, a victim of budget cuts at a time when the legislature decided it couldn’t justify a position the state’s own attorney general described as “mainly symbolic.”
Officially, the legislature is considering removing the language that created the ombudsman’s office. Curiously, State Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Todd Weiler, the same man who authored Utah’s resolution declaring porn a public health crisis and sponsored a more recent law that allows the state’s parents to sue pornographers for harms allegedly done to their children, is the one who entered the motion to remove the language –- but not because he thinks the obscenity ombudsman is a bad a idea.
“We’re always looking for statutory language that is essentially stale and not being used,” Weiler said, explaining why he made the motion.
At the same time, however, Weiler appears to be considering reviving the office of the ombudsman and expanding its scope along the way. Weiler says he started considering reviving the ombudsman following conversations with Victoria Hearst, who is leading a campaign to get states to consider Cosmopolitan a pornographic publication, and to place it behind blinders as they do with adult publications like Playboy or HUSTLER.
“I’ve received some complaints since this campaign (of Hearst’s) started that stores are selling Cosmo at eye-level to a child,” Weiler said. “There’s no blinder rack on it, even though we have some blinder rack language in the state code.”
“I don’t consider myself a prude,” Weiler added. “And I was shocked at some of the content that was in [Cosmo].”
Weiler said he’s also concerned because Cosmo “has this aura of legitimacy because it is 100 years old” and wasn’t always so sexually explicit.
“If you go into a doctor’s office, you would be shocked to see Playboy or Penthouse,” Weiler said, “and yet if there is a Cosmo there, no one would think twice about it.”
For her part, Hearst said she’s not out to destroy Cosmo — just to get states to handle the magazine the same way they do the sale and distribution of other adult publications.
“[It’s] not about censoring the magazine or putting it out of business,” Hearst said. “It is about getting Cosmopolitan magazine’s pornographic and harmful content out of the hands of kids, specifically tween and teen girls.”
As for how reestablishing the obscenity ombudsman might prove useful, Weiler said he sees a role for the office beyond responding to questions about porn from Utah’s citizens and government officials. The office could dole out legal advice in other areas, as well.
“It’s not that we would have someone going out from the AG’s office arresting business owners, but more of a clearinghouse for questions to be answered,” Weiler said. “You can’t call the AG’s office and ask for legal advice. You can call, but when they’re done laughing, they are going to hang up on you.”
Weiler said one thing impeding reconsideration of the office is the cost of doing of reestablishment.
“I’ve really tried with all my anti-pornography efforts to do it in a way that doesn’t cost taxpayers any money,” he said. “One of my hesitancies in opening this is it is a new position that would have to be funded.”
Regardless whether Utah begins handling Cosmo differently or reestablishes the office of the obscenity ombudsman, there’s another question that may be worth pondering by Hearst, Weiler and others who think putting blinders in front of magazines in store displays will make a dent in the way young people are exposed to sexually explicit materials: Does anyone make the equivalent of magazine blinders for smartphones, worldly friends and/or siblings?
