SALT LAKE CITY, Utah—After 32 years in the U.S. Senate, Utah’s Orrin Hatch, 83, is finally calling it quits—and not a moment too soon. Certainly, the adult entertainment community will be happy to see him go, since as a Senate Judiciary Committee member, he supported every single anti-sexual speech measure to come before him.
Hatch’s decision, besides the fact that “75 percent of [Utah] voters indicated in a survey last fall that they did not want him to run again,” was likely influenced by an editorial that ran in the Salt Lake Tribune on Christmas Day. Though it was titled “Why Orrin Hatch is Utahn of the Year,” its writers were quick to point out that it assigns that label to “the Utahn who, over the past 12 months, has done the most. Has made the most news. Has had the biggest impact. For good or for ill.” Guess which category the paper put Hatch into?
The paper named three major issues that influenced its judgment: Hatch’s support for Trump’s shrinking two national momuments located in Utah; his support for the Trump tax “reform” bill (though Hatch had once supported a “balanced budget amendment” to prevent things like the expected outcome of a $1.5 billion increase in the national debt under the Trump bill); and perhaps most tellingly, “His utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power.”
But Hatch is perhaps best remembered by the adult industry as one of the signers of a 2011 letter, created by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE; formerly Morality in Media), to then-Attorney General Eric Holder asking “the Department of Justice vigorously to enforce federal obscenity laws against major commercial distributors of hardcore adult pornography …
“Simply put, we know more than ever how illegal adult obscenity contributes to violence against women, addiction, harm to children, and sex trafficking,” the letter continues. “This material harms individuals, families, and communities and the problems are only getting worse. We urge you to study the evidence gathered in such sources as PornographyHarms.com to more fully understand the crisis and the urgent need for enforcement.”
