Porn is big business in America, but even bigger in conservative states reports a recent article from the  Journal of Economic Perspectives.  You can read the news brief here or see Dem Bones‘ good summary of the stats and method.  Andrew Sullivan highlights the most arresting parts.

Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year’s presidential election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favored Barack Obama. Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don’t explicitly restrict gay marriage…

States where a majority of residents agreed with the statement ‘I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage,’ bought 3.6 more subscriptions per thousand people than states where a majority disagreed. A similar difference emerged for the statement ‘AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behavior.’

One could get irritated that politics and religion were brought into a discussion on pornography, but I think it is useful if it helps in getting perspective on just how screwed up the religious and political discourse can get in America.  Why am I disturbed about the correlation of higher porn purchasers in conservative states? Because I can only think of three reasons it could have happened (feel free to give me more).

1. Satan cooked the scientific and peer-reviewed study to lead to the online persecution of conservatives.

2. Living next door to a religious and political conservative leads to an increase in the leftist humanists purchasing of porn.

3. ‘Something like repression: if you’re told you can’t have this, then you want it more.’

This third ‘forbidden fruit’ answer makes the most sense, though option two isn’t too wonderful either. This study however highlights a third element concentrated along with conservatism and pornography, namely hypocrisy.  Yes everyone is a hypocrite, but this is concentrated and worth talking about for a couple reasons

A conservative Christian would have to affirm that the support of the porn industry is sinful and that almost every use of it is sinful.  If in the words of Jesus, ‘to look at a woman lustfully is to have already committed adultery,’ then it appears the greatest threat to Christian marriage may be on this very computer screen.  While I disagree with my conservative friends about the need to establish heterosexual marriage legally, it is a bit disturbing to think they are legislating on black print Bible verses and spending more financially than the rest of the country on red letter violations.  Utah, the biggest porn buying state, even invested in its neighbor’s anti-gay legislation.  I am not asking anyone to change their mind ethically, just in emphasis of practice.  This seems to fall into the ‘log in your eye, speck in your brothers’ category.