As promised, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed a resolution on Tuesday declaring pornography to be a “public health hazard leading to a broad spectrum of individual and public health impacts and societal harms,” alongside a child pornography measure.

“Pornography is a public health crisis,” Herbert announced. “Today I signed two bills that will bring its dangers to light.”

The “public health hazard” resolution, SCR9, is a master class in peddling anti-porn pseudoscience. And although the law, sponsored by state Sen. Todd Weiler, contains no mechanism for enforcement, it encourages Gov. Herbert and the Utah state legislature to “address the pornography epidemic that is harming the people of our state and nation” with “education, prevention, research, and policy change.”

If Utah legislators were to change public policy based on this resolution, they would be doing so based on unsubstantiated claims about the dangers of pornography and the legitimacy of “porn addiction.” In fact, almost every line of the law is inaccurate or misleading.

The resolution claims that “the average age of exposure to pornography is now 11 to 12 years of age.” That statistic may have originated with the group Family Safe Media, a company that sells TV profanity filters. The age 11 number is frequently touted by groups like Focus on the Family without any apparent citation. In reality, as a 2008 study found, “exposure prior to age 13 was relatively uncommon” (PDF).

SCR9 also refers to frequent pornography usage as a “biological addiction” despite the fact that “porn addiction” and “sex addiction” are not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). In fact, the American Psychiatric Association has repeatedly rejected attempts to recognize “sex addiction” or “hypersexual disorder,” based on a lack of evidence.Biological examinations of so-called “porn addiction” have generally been fruitless. A 2015 neuroscience study published in Biological Psychology found that electrical activity in the brains of people who felt their porn usage was problematic looked nothing like the patterns found in the brains of actual addicts. That didn’t stop the Utah state legislature from declaring that “recent research indicates that pornography is potentially biologically addictive.”

Why might someone believe in “porn addiction” without supporting evidence? Recent research in the Archives of Sexual Behavior has shown that “religiosity is robustly predictive of perceived [pornography] addiction.” This perception of addiction is unrelated to actual use. In other words, a religious person who watches pornography once a week is probably more likely to consider himself “addicted” than an atheist who indulges every night.Relevant here is the fact that most Utah state legislators are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that one of the most frequently cited figures in anti-porn pseudoscience is Donald Hilton, a Mormon neurosurgeon. The Mormon Church itself has endorsed the concepts of “sexual addiction” and “porn addiction,” treating them under a 12-step model in its Addiction Recovery Program.

It does take a great deal of faith to believe many of the other unscientific claims in SCR9.

For instance, the resolution contends that pornography “can impact brain development.” This claim might appear credible based on a 2014 study that found an association between porn use and gray matter volume in one region of the brain but even the authors of the study note that the relationship may not be causal. The decreased gray matter volume, the authors acknowledge, could simply be “a precondition that makes pornography consumption more rewarding,” rather than a result of frequent viewing over time.

Ultimately, the supreme irony of SCR9 is that it claims pornography is leading to a “a public health crisis” when, in fact, a belief in porn addiction is associated with mental health problems.

A 2015 study in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors found that, although pornography use itself is “relatively unrelated to psychological distress,” believing you are “addicted to Internet pornography” is associated with depression, anxiety, anger, and stress.

“[T]hese findings strongly underscore the claim that perceived addiction to Internet pornography likely contributes to the experience of psychological distress for some individuals,” the researchers concluded.

The authors of Utah’s new resolution claim to be concerned about the “emotional and medical illnesses” that pornography can cause. But if they’re worried about the mental health of Utahns, they should probably stop promoting the potentially harmful myth that is “porn addiction.”