In light of JD Vance’s meteoric rise as a serious Republican candidate who can take on Democrat Tim Ryan in the 2022 Ohio Senate race, the Huffington Post this week unearthed an interview Vance did with Crisis Magazine in 2021 where Vance promoted an “outright ban on pornography.”
This revelation is not surprising considering Vance’s pro-marriage, pro-life messages that date as far back as his bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. But the left apparently thinks this is a devastating attack on the candidate.
The context of the Crisis Magazine quotes shed more light on his comments, which go beyond the typical conservative stance that porn is detrimental to society.
The Crisis Magazine reporter asked Vance his thoughts on porn, birth control, and their effects on familial decline and plummeting birth rates.
“I think the combination of porn, [and] abortion have basically created a really lonely, isolated generation that isn’t getting married, they’re not having families, and they’re actually not even totally sure how to interact with each other,” Vance said.
The left is up in arms over the stance. Here’s just one sampling:
NEW: Ohio Republican Senate nominee JD Vance has called for a total ban on porn— he suggests porn is responsible for mass shootings, along with abortion. He previously declared porn “a public health crisis.” (@huffpost)
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) May 31, 2022
RELATED: Flashback: Reagan’s Speech To The NRA Hammers Home ‘Nasty Truth’ About Gun Grabbers
The Science Is In: Porn is Bad
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Scientific studies continue to unearth negative side effects to consuming pornography. According to Fight the New Drug, a non-profit dedicated to exposing the harms of pornography, “In addition to showing the addictive effects of porn, a growing number of studies are showing other very real ways that porn harms people and relationships.”
The group shares that there are over 40 studies that link compulsive porn use to depression, anxiety, and mental health issues. Additionally, dozens of studies link porn use and sexual addiction to sexual problems and lower arousal. Over 50 studies link porn use to less sexual satisfaction and lower relationship quality.
This data provides the backdrop for comments Vance made when he spoke at the National Conservative Conference in 2021. He reiterated his views that America needs stronger families and less porn.
“We made a political choice that the freedom to consume pornography was more important than the public goods, like marriage and family and happiness,” he said. “We can’t ignore the fact that we made that choice, and we shouldn’t shy away from the fact that we can make new choices in the future.”
Here’s the article @NoLieWithBTC is citing.@JDVance1 never once says that say porn is responsible for mass shootings.
He literally made it up: https://t.co/YoJu6QrPNk pic.twitter.com/f24GtnGl4r
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 31, 2022
RELATED: JPMorgan Chief Jamie Dimon Warns Americans: Brace Yourself For An Economic ‘Hurricane’
Better Support Systems Needed
In response to the mass shooting at Rob Elementary school in Uvalde, TX last week, Vance tweeted a statement explaining his proposed solutions for gun violence. Spoiler alert, none of his solutions involve confiscating firearms from law abiding citizens.
“We need to address the culture of fatherlessness and drug addiction in our country, focus on the importance of family so that our next generation is guided and empowered with strong support systems,” Vance said.
Vance himself comes from a fatherless home. His mother struggled with addiction, and he was raised primarily by his grandparents. His book details how he broke the cycle of poverty in his family and eventually attended an Ivy League law school. If anyone in modern politics understands the plight of the American family, it is JD Vance.
“Many of our families are broken,” Vance said. “I know what it’s like to grow up without a father in the home, and the problems that can create for a lifetime. We need to reinvigorate the American family, make it easier to support a family on a single middle-class wage, and encourage fathers to step up in families across our country.”
The PEW Research Center reports that the U.S. has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households at 23% compared to 7% globally. Another study finds that boys raised in a single-parent household are more than twice as likely to be incarcerated, compared with boys raised in an intact, married home.
Vance’s point that strengthening the family is proved by numerous studies that link marriage to better economic outcomes. The Institute for Family studies finds that when young people complete at least a high school education, work full time, and get married, there is only a 2 percent chance of being in poverty. This trifecta is known as the success sequence. Studies show that those who do not follow all three steps of the sequence increase their chance of being in poverty by 77 percent.
Maybe Vance is onto something. If anything, the response from the left shows that he’s over the target.
Ted Cruz wanted to ban dildos and now JD Vance wants to ban porn.
They don’t want their wives finding out that they’re supposed to climax.
— ???????????????? (@antifaoperative) May 31, 2022
Ted Cruz wants to ban sex toys
JD Vance wants to ban porn
Ben Shapiro thinks WAP is a medical conditionThey’re telling on themselves.
— Philip Germain (@Philip_Germain) May 31, 2022
I have never been surer than I am right now that JD Vance watches a lot of porn. https://t.co/eM65rFsIqG
— Schrödinger’s Sneetch Belly (@RTodKelly) May 31, 2022
For the coup de grace, Vance’s position isn’t just wrong.
No, hidden in his stance is, you guessed it, the evil specter of racism. Banning porn, you may be surprised to learn, is an anti-semitic conspiracy theory.
The Ohio GOP candidate for U.S. Senate JD Vance wants to ban pornography — echoing a movement undergirded by the conspiracy theory that the porn industry is run by Jews to weaken white men. https://t.co/NVeyLyNe9q
— The Forward (@jdforward) June 1, 2022
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