Pornography ~ President Thomas S. Monson

We have the capacity and the responsibility to stand as a bulwark between all we hold dear and the fatal contamination of [pornography]. May I suggest three specific steps in our battle plan:

First, a return to righteousness. An understanding of who we are and what God expects us to become will prompt us to pray—as individuals and as families. Such a return reveals the constant truth: “Wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10). Let not the evil one dissuade. We can yet be guided by that still small voice—unerring in its direction and all-powerful in its influence.

Second, a quest for the good life. I speak not of the fun life, the sophisticated life, the popular life. Rather, I urge each to seek eternal life—life everlasting with mother, father, brothers, sisters, husband, wife, sons, and daughters, forever and forever together.

Third, a pledge to wage and win the war against pernicious permissiveness. As we encounter that evil carrier, the pornography beetle, let our battle standard and that of our communities be taken from that famous ensign of early America, “Don’t tread on me” (John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, p. 1090).

Let us join in the fervent declaration of Joshua: “Choose you this day whom ye will serve … but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15). Let our hearts be pure. Let our lives be clean. Let our voices be heard. Let our actions be felt.

Then ... pornography will be halted in its deadly course. Pernicious permissiveness will have met its match. And we, with Joshua, will safely cross over Jordan into the promised land—even to eternal life in the celestial kingdom of our God.

~ President Thomas S. Monson, "Pornography -- The Deadly Carrier,"  General Conference, October 1979.