As Utah Takes Aim at Smut, the Internet Is Job 1

The people of Utah were concerned. Smut had inundated the state and deposited an unseemly grime, like a bathtub ring. The filth was everywhere: on the Internet, in schools, even on supermarket shelves.

Heeding their outcry, the state Legislature last spring created a new post--the nation’s first porn czar. Pesky details such as allocating funding for the position and actually describing the duties of the job would come later.

As it happens, the no-nonsense citizens of Utah have taken it upon themselves to tell Paula Houston what her responsibilities are. In her first few weeks as porn czar, Houston has been called upon to: convince supermarkets to display racy magazines at adult eye level, intercept a Victoria’s Secret catalog from a family’s mailbox, remove R-rated videos from public libraries, forbid unclothed mannequins to be displayed at department stores and outlaw strip clubs.

Oh, and ban the Internet.

Houston, a 41-year-old former prosecutor, wants Utahns to know she hears them. But as for what she’s charged with doing, Houston admits, “I’m pretty much making it up as I go along.”

As far as anyone can tell, Houston is the only “obscenity and pornography complaints ombudsman” in the country. She works for the state attorney general and has been allocated a dim, nondescript cubbyhole in a warren of state offices downtown. Houston has been so consumed with getting the job started that she’s yet to decorate the beige walls or fill the bookshelves. The sole personal touch is a tiny teddy bear propped against her desk computer.

With a $150,000 budget, which lawmakers fully funded earlier this month, Houston must pay a secretary (part time only), an investigator (for Internet issues only) and answer the flood of questions and complaints that Utahns have been saving up for someone like Houston, who is paid to listen.

It’s not as if Utah is crawling with pornography. There are no adult bookstores in the entire state, although such establishments located just across the state line report a booming business. But with a population dominated by the conservative and family-oriented Mormon faith, what smut there is in Utah is not tolerated.

“I don’t want to reinvent the wheel,” said Houston, who views her mandate as assisting communities in setting decency standards and legally defending them. “One of the first things I tell people is that what the government can do is very limited,” she said recently. “But the power of the people is very strong. They can have a huge impact on the community.”

Houston is amiable and thoughtful but not naive. She anticipated that the job--in particular its provocative title--would stir controversy. It has, and it’s gotten personal. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Houston is a virgin, leading some here to question her ability to judge sexual material. Houston, who is single and a Mormon, said that she never responded to the paper’s question about her virginity. But, she adds, she adheres to church teachings admonishing against sex before marriage.

In any event, she says, her personal or religious views are irrelevant. What is important is the message she tirelessly has been spreading in interviews--including one with Penthouse magazine: “I’m not going to be a censor.”

Still, lawyers and civil libertarians fear Houston will operate as the state’s good-taste monitor. Critics say they fear the office’s potential to trample individual rights, more than anything Houston has done so far.

“Hopefully, the job is only really silly. If it’s only silly, it can’t be harmful,” said Andrew McCullough, an attorney who represents strip clubs and other adult-oriented businesses in the state. “I can live with a $150,000-a-year joke. But if she’s out there busting people, I may have a problem.”

Even Houston’s boss, Atty. Gen. Mark Shurtleff, concedes that for now her job “is mainly symbolic.”

Gov. Mike Leavitt said that, rather than taking on pornographers herself on behalf of the state, the porn czar will aid local officials and serve as a clearinghouse for legal information and advice.

“Many local communities have a hard time working their way through the legal maze to establish and keep their own standards,” Leavitt said. “This person has been designated not to be the porn cop but as an advisor to communities to assist them in maintaining standards that are important to them.”

One task lawmakers did set for Houston was to draft model legislation addressing pornography and obscenity. They are calling it a “moral nuisance law,” and it is due by Oct. 25.

Houston also is supposed to help local officials clarify their own ordinances--something Shurtleff said should mean fewer legal tangles.

He cited a case in Ogden: A developer received permission to build an all-nude bar in an industrial park where zoning allowed adult businesses. Residents and local business owners complained. City officials, lacking any ordinance to stop construction of the Tool Box, cited “wholesomeness standards.”

The angry developer then countered by declaring his establishment was to be an all-nude juice bar. “What could be more wholesome than a juice bar?” he asked.

Shurtleff said that, in this case, which is pending, Houston can assist city officials to write more precise ordinances. “Now they can call Paula and ask: ‘What’s the right standard to apply here?’ We’d like to avoid lawsuits.”

“My job is not to go out and sue people,” Houston said. “I won’t be the one making the final decision. It’s a local issue, and it will be the local attorney making the decision for their community. That’s how it should be.”

She said that, while citizen complaints have run the gamut from offensive signs to objectionable rap CDs in school libraries, the most common concern is with the Web.

This month, the Utah Legislature charged Houston with responsibility for combating cyber-sex.

“We want to see if there’s a way we can regulate what comes into Utah, including the Internet,” she said, sighing at the magnitude of the task. “I don’t have an answer, by any means, but it’s definitely a concern.”