Cleveland, Ohio, Jul 20, 2016 / 13:14 pm
It merited only one paragraph in the 2016 GOP platform, but the party's stand against pornography is drawing commendation from all sides, not only conservatives and Catholics.
"I would argue, surprisingly, that this is the most progressive piece in the platform," Gail Dines, a professor of sociology at Wheelock College and founder of Culture Reframed, a group that educates about "pornography as a public health crisis in the digital age," told CNA.
The 2016 GOP platform calls pornography a "menace" and a "public health crisis" that especially hurts children – language not used in the 2012 platform. It further acknowledges the link between child pornography and human trafficking, which the 2012 platform also noted.
The U.S. Catholic bishops already warned of the danger of pornography in a pastoral response issued in November, "Create In Me a Clean Heart." They called porn a "grave sin against human dignity" and noted its recent "exponential" proliferation thanks to the internet.