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The top three Republican presidential candidates pledged a war on porn today which means that they have promised more action to ban porn than to create jobs.

The conservative group Morality In Media is head over heels today after all three top Republican candidates promised to go war against the distribution of porn. In a written statement, Rick Santorum said, “Federal obscenity laws should be vigorously enforced. If elected President, I will appoint an Attorney General who will do so.”

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Not to be outdone, Mitt Romney gave a statement to the group that said, “(I)t is imperative that we cultivate the promotion of fundamental family values. This can be accomplished with increased parental involvement and enhanced supervision of our children. It includes strict enforcement of our nation’s obscenity laws, as well as the promotion of parental software controls that guard our children from Internet pornography.”

Then we have Newt Gingrich, who wasn’t satisfied with a written statement. In a face to face meeting, Gingrich told Morality In Media that, “Yes, I will appoint an Attorney General who will enforce these laws.” The existing laws that each of these candidates were referring to are federal laws that they and Morality In Media feel make the distribution of pornography illegal.

What the candidates and the group really are saying through the usual right wing code is that they want to ban pornography.

On one of their many websites, the group claims blames pornography for most of society’s ills and believes that porn causes brain damage, “Simultaneously, medical research documenting how pornography harms brain function is now available, yet it is still relatively unknown to parents, medical personnel, legislators, and law enforcement.”

While combing through the group’s websites, I could not find a distinction between “legal” and “illegal” porn, but in their press release they express the belief that the distribution of all hardcore pornography is illegal.

If you really want to know how the Republican Party got so screwed up, consider that the top three candidates for the Republican presidential nomination has given more detail about how they would ban pornography than they have about how they would create jobs. I don’t care what people do in the privacy of their homes, and you would think that supposedly “small government” conservatives wouldn’t either.

Each candidate has a different reason for taking this position. Rick Santorum is a true believer. Mitt Romney is shamelessly pandering and trying to prove that he is a real conservative, but the real jaw dropper is serial adulterer Newt Gingrich promising to ban the distribution of porn. If anyone knows firsthand about the dangers of porn, it’s Newt.

The party of small government doesn’t want to put people back to work. No, their most pressing priority is to arrest people who distribute porn, which really tells you everything you need to know about the current state of the Republican Party.

We have had the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on terror, and if a Republican gets elected president, we will have the war on porn.