Rick Santorum's withdrawal from the race for the Republican Party's nomination for president spawned a sigh of relief that echoed from the Hollywood Hills and into every wood-paneled parents' basement in America.
For lovers of the erotic arts, however, you might want to think twice before signing up to support the GOP’s current frontrunner, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Although the War on Porn that Santorum insisted on starting is safe for now, it appears as if Romney is just as riled up over pornography as others in his party.Two videos featuring Republican Party presidential hopeful Mitt Romney were uncovered this week by reporters at Buzzfeed, and the message made loud and clear by the likely GOP nominee is not something that will sit well with advocates for Internet freedoms or porno fans alike. In the two newly resurfaced clips, Governor Romney is caught asking for supporters to rally against adult entertainment on the Web.“I want to make sure that we all understand that we have to clean up the water that our kids are swimming in — and by that, I mean the pornography, the drug culture, the violence, the sex, the perversion that bombards them day in and day out,” Governor Romney revealed to a Ottumwa, Iowa audience in one of the clips from 2007. At the time, the former head of Bain Capital was campaigning for the GOP nod before eventually losing the nomination to Arizona Senator John McCain. Four years down the road, however, it could be a matter of time before the current top-contender rehashes his war against Internet porn.“I want to make sure that we enforce our obscenity laws,” Romney continues in the clip. “I want to make sure that retailers don’t sell adult video games to kids, and I want to make sure that every new computer sold in this country after I’m president has installed on it a filter to block all pornography and that parents can click that filter and make sure that their kids don’t see that kind of stuff coming in on their computer.”In a separate address made that year during the Iowa Republican Straw Poll, Romney nearly repeated his plea verbatim, once again insisting on blocking pornography from minors. “I want to make sure that every computer that goes into a home in the future has a button there or a place for the citizen there, the parent, to be able to block all that pornography from their kids internet screen,” said Romney, who then went on to add that he wants to ensure that America’s obscenity laws are enforced.It might be a notion that will sit well with a fair share of the Republican Party today, but the clips couldn’t have surfaced at a more coincidently crummy time for the candidate. While he advocated enforcing filters on the Internet only four years ago, today Romney is reaching out to collect support from the same citizens he wanted to shield from sexy images the last time he tried to make it to the White House.“I think young voters in this country have to vote for me if they’re really thinking about what’s in the best interest of the country and what’s in their personal best interests,” Romney told an audience in Aston, Pennsylvania on Monday. “I think this is a time when young people are questioning the support they gave to President Obama three and a half years ago. He promised bringing the country together. That sure hasn’t happened. He promised a future with good jobs and good opportunity. That hasn’t happened.”What President Obama has done, however, has kept the Internet open for, yes, even porn. So far, at least. As RT reported earlier today, the White House has formally condemned the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, CISPA, with his administration insisting that the White House is seeking an alternative that will provide “necessary protections for individuals.” If passed, CISPA will allow the federal government and private agencies alike to interfere with the online habits of American Web surfers.Before bowing out of the GOP race, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum insisted on abolishing pornography in America, citing “a wealth of research” that suggests that naughty images provoke “profound brain changes in both children and adults” and cause “a pandemic of harm” for the country’s citizens. The adult film industry responded by releasing a video clip calling for a national day of masturbation that has since gone viral.