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Baptist pastor Dusty Deevers was elected to the Oklahoma Senate in December 2023, but he is wasting no time pushing forward his ultra-conservative agenda, including getting rid of no-fault divorce in the state.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown, senior editor at Reason Magazine, told The New Abnormal’s co-host Andy Levy that Sen. Deevers has now introduced a bill that would ban all pornography.
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Under the bill, single people who are caught sexting could theoretically be thrown in jail for 20 years, and the recipient of the sext might face a year in prison.
“This bill is broad enough to include any person’s, like butt selfie for example, it includes live performances in play. So that would seem to include strip clubs definitely and maybe also burlesque and drag performances and things like that,” Nolan Brown said. “It also contains this weird clause where it says, this is not meant to go after married couples who are communicating with each other. So it has this weird carve-out if you’re sexting while married.”
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Nolan Brown said while she doesn’t believe the proposed legislation will pass in Oklahoma, Republican lawmakers are writing very broad bills that could be used by extremists.
“I still think this is worth pointing out because it’s not just one guy who is doing this. We’re seeing similar sort of attitudes, similar legislation, in state houses around the country. We’re seeing national lawmakers like J.D. Vance and Josh Hawley talking about how we need to ban porn,” she said. “This is not a totally fringe position within today’s GOP.”
Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.
