Deseret Morning News April 6, 2006

Activists clash on effects of porn

Is it a home-wrecker or a form of harmless fun?

By David Crary
Associated Press

NEW YORK — The industry's VIPs mingle at political galas and Super Bowl parties. Their product is available on cell phones, podcasts and particularly the Internet — there it's an attraction like no other, patronized by tens of millions of Americans.

John Harmer

      It's pornography. And if you're a consumer, Utahn John Harmer thinks you're damaging your brain.
      Harmer is part of a cadre of anti-porn activists seeking new tactics to fight an unprecedented deluge of porn that they they see as wrecking countless marriages and warping human sexuality. They are urging federal prosecutors to pursue more obscenity cases and raising funds for high-tech brain research that they hope will fuel lawsuits against porn magnates.
      "We don't think it's a lost cause," said Harmer, an auto executive and former politician who's been fighting porn for 40 years.
      "It's the most profitable industry in the world," he said. "But I'm convinced we'll demonstrate in the not-too-distant future the actual physical harm that pornography causes and hold them financially accountable.