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Between mental health support in the aftermath of the recent school shooting, diabetes, and Zika, it seems like Florida has a lot on its plate. But what are state officials choosing to spend time and money on? Porn.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, the state could declare porn a public health risk that requires education, research, and policy changes. The resolution is sponsored by Republican Rep. Ross Spano, who is also a candidate for attorney general.
“Research has found a correlation between pornography use and mental and physical illness, difficulty forming and maintaining intimate relationships, unhealthy brain development and cognitive function, and deviant, problematic, or dangerous sexual behavior,” he told the House Health and Human Services Committee, which approved the resolution via a 18-1 vote.
The one vote in opposition came from a Republican representative named Cary Pigman, who is a medical doctor. After the meeting, he said that there are more important health issues the state should be focused on.
“We have problems with hypertension, with obesity, with diabetes, with Zika,” he said. “We have a whole list of things that are important medically. I’m not so sure that we need to spend legislative time annunciating a specific complaint when we have others that are far more pressing.”
While Spano originally intended to call the issue a “public health crisis,” he settled on a “public health risk” to get it to pass. But as Teen Vogue points out, there might be more of an issue concerning the state of sex education in public schools.
“It’s ridiculous to call this a public health crisis or risk anything if you’re not also calling the lack of sex ed a crisis, too,” Emily Rothman, an associate professor at the Boston University School of Public Health told Teen Vogue. “I think the real problem is that we’re lacking comprehensive sex education in schools.”
